


Angel Among Men (Loki Love Story)

by Miss_Markers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Markers/pseuds/Miss_Markers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aderyn was created in a lab as an experiment. She escapes and travels to Manhattan, finding that the labs weren't the worst place she could've been. But then she meets someone who gives her an out: join him, go with him, and never have to be someone's lab rat or experiment or pet ever again. Of course, that would mean trusting him first. (Sorry if the description is stupid...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Appearances

**Author's Note:**

> Oh God, where do I start? I guess with the whole "wings" thing: I was what you would call a test tube baby. A group of federal scientists created me and altered my DNA before I was born, and the result was wings. I also ended up getting other powers, such as enhanced senses and a "sonic screech" that, if at the right frequency, can turn brains to mush or knock over full buildings. The scientists let me watch popular movies and TV shows in order to keep updated with the world outside of the labs, and they taught me school, but they also trained me to fight and fly in formations. I flew through hoops for them, some of which were on fire, and I tried my hardest to do what they wanted; every time that I didn't... I was locked in a cage. When I was about five they decided to attach a metal band around my ankle. A needle was injected under my skin and once they determined whether or not I was doing what they wanted they would press a button on a remote that I never saw and electricity would pass from the band through the needle and into my nervous system, traveling up to my brain and paralyzing me. It was easier for them to control me that way.

        My hands were shaking so much that it looked like I was about to have a seizure. My lips were trembling as I sucked in the freezing night air, feeling the ice in the air filling my lungs with its near emptiness. As I exhaled as calmly as possible I watched the cloud of breath that swirled out of my mouth and mingled with the clear night that engulfed me, shielding me from the prying eyes of the city sprawled out in front of me. Sharp sounds that seemed to come from all around me danced in my ears, teasing my sub consciousness, reminding me of the lab and all of the different sounds that existed inside of it. Each new engine that was started in the streets below where I perched caused me to jump and think that they had found me.  
        I gripped the branch underneath me hard enough to dig splinters into my fingertips, but the cold of the evening blocked the pain. My breath caught in my throat and I had a moment’s hesitation before I hopped down into the soft, leaf stricken grass, feeling the icy dew seep between my bare toes send a shiver up my spine that traveled throughout my entire body. I rolled my shoulders; my gaze never broke from the bright lights cast about the city as I sucked in a sharp breath that made my chest ache. There were so many people down there, all tightly compacted together corner after corner, building after building, and it freaked me out to think that I was about to go down there.  
        I was still some distance away, near one of the many suburbs that surrounded Manhattan, but the road that extended mere feet away from me led down into the heart of it: I could easily slide over to it, walk along the edge and end up in the city in less than an hour. But there was a tugging feeling in my gut that taking that road was too forward, too open: I needed to remain hidden as long as I could before the scientists found me again.  
        I jumped up and down, attempting to calm my nerves, and stepped out of the shadow and into the yellow light shining down from the street lamp closest to me. I looked up at the light bulb and as soon as I did I heard a ringing in my ears, felt a pull in my gut, and opened my mouth to unleash a resonating screech that shattered the light bulb in the lamp. I breathed in quickly, glancing around me to ensure that people hadn’t been near enough to notice the sudden paralyzing sound, and took up a rapid pace in the direction of the city. I jammed my hands deep into my pockets, remaining in the shadows so that the occasional passing car didn’t notice me, and felt the jacket constrict as my wings twitched.  
        I sighed, wishing that I could remove the jacket and unfurl my wings; they were so cramped, and it was extremely uncomfortable the way that I had them folded up. The jacket I had on was four sizes too big and went down to my calves, effectively hiding the dark feathers from the world, but it was itchy over my wings. I hated it, but it was necessary to remain hidden from people. I wanted so badly to just stretch them out and fly to Manhattan, but I ran the risk of people seeing me and having the scientists locate me.  
        It had been three days since the last time I’d gotten the opportunity to fly, but even then I hadn’t because of the location I was: there were too many people, and it was unsafe for me to expose myself out in the open like that. Before that though, I’d only ever flown while I was at the labs.  
        I involuntarily shuddered in remembrance of the labs and the scientists, and all that had happened while I was there, which was my entire life. I was born in captivity, having undergone several experimentations when I was an embryo that caused mutations in my DNA. I ended up being born with wings and a few powers ended up developing as I grew, one of which being my “sonic screech” as the scientists liked to put it. I could open my mouth and scream, and be able to turn brains to mush; I could scream, and buildings would fall over; I could scream, and shatter glass. It was terrifying.  
        Along with the screaming, my senses were enhanced: the scientists compared my eyesight to that of a bird’s, which would make sense, but they couldn’t make sense of my other ones and why they were so much stronger than they should be.  
        Wind from a passing car ruffled through my short, choppy black hair and lifted the jacket out a little, causing my feathers to ruffle as well, and I instantly froze, paralyzed in fear of being seen. I expected the car to put itself in reverse and back up to check me out, to see if what they had seen was real, but rather than prove my paranoia right the car continued at unsafe speeds towards Manhattan, followed closely by several other cars that were traveling just as fast. I slowed my breathing while I watched them get closer and closer to the city, more and more cars following them: this was truly the city that never sleeps.  
        My eyes darted back and forth as I continued walking, biting the side of my tongue out of habit: while I was in the lab I would often bite the side of my tongue because when I was younger I would bite my nails or my lip and get slapped, so I found that since they couldn’t see my tongue it was safer for me. Thinking about that got me to hyperventilate again, remembering a specific time when I bit down on my tongue hard enough to draw blood. I had been in the middle of a training exercise, and I didn’t flip through the hoop like they had wanted me too. I came in diagonally and clipped my wing against it, causing me to fall hard to the floor, and Dr. Ramsey rushed over, helped me up, and proceeded to scold me about following instructions to the “t”. I, having just gotten to watch a teen movie where the main character talked back to her teacher and ended up changing the way the entire class system worked, had an irrational sense of rebellion and asked Dr. Ramsey why he didn’t do the training in my place. As soon as I spoke I regretted it, for instantly an electric pulse traveled from the metal “anklet” around my ankle to my brain and paralyzed my body so that it was easier for some of Dr. Ramsey’s workers to lift me up and place me in my cage.  
        When I say cage, I literally mean that: I had a cage that they tended to put me in whenever I misbehaved, which honestly wasn’t that often, but that only made my time spent in it that much worse. It was barely bigger than me, and I could only lie there and hope that time was moving much faster than it was. I couldn’t see out of the cage, and while I was in it I could hardly breath since there weren’t any holes in it: it was solid metal. I was effectively a “lab rat”.  
        The scientists treated me like an animal, so the fact that I escaped wasn’t that hard to comprehend, but when they found me the first time they seemed shocked: they didn’t think that I would ever be able to escape, which really pissed me off. They didn’t think I was smart enough or skilled enough to make it on my own. Of course, they were the ones who taught me everything that I knew so they should’ve seen it coming.  
        Honking from the growing traffic snapped me back into the present and made me realize that I had almost walked straight into the curving street. There was a long row of cars on their ways to the city, and although I was so close to them none had so much as noticed me, which only made me thankful for the fact that humans were so self-absorbed. The people in their cars were worried about getting into the city, but the cars in front of them weren’t moving. My gaze traveled down the line of cars and saw that the traffic had no beginning: it just went all the way to the city. I signed and adjusted my direction before continuing down towards Manhattan.  
        There was another gust of wind, but I was prepared and held my jacket down over the tips of my wings, which was fairly uncomfortable since it was getting stuffy in it, even with the cool air around me. My toes were still cold though, so I was anxious to find somewhere to take shelter. I looked around at the sky as I walked, noticing that I couldn’t see any stars and that it was going to rain. I sighed, picking up the pace even though I liked the rain: I couldn’t afford to walk in it since I didn’t need any scrutiny from anyone and walking into a building soaking wet would draw attention. Plus my jacket would get soaked and become skin tight, revealing my wings.  
        “What’s the hold up?” a man yelled, sticking his head out of his window. I stopped moving and watched him for a moment in wonder; he was beyond furious, and only because he was in traffic. I briefly envied him of his ignorance, wishing that I could be upset about something as remedial as traffic rather than all that I had to deal with, but shook it off and continued yet again, this time at a slight jog. I surged forward, getting closer and closer to the city, and watched as I passed by several small buildings. One of them was a bookshop, and another was an old-timey barber. I was intrigued, but continued, passing a hotel that towered up and over the smaller shops near it; I was awed at how tall the building was, but then I passed it over and stopped in my tracks, staring up at the city in all its glory. Each building it seemed was several times taller than the hotel, each one seeming to grow in size each time I blinked. There weren’t very many buildings with names on them, but that was all the same, making the ones without the names on the front more interesting than the ones that did.  
        I tore my eyes from the skyscrapers, watching the seeming endless hordes of people scurry around to unknown destinations. There were people hailing taxicabs, stopping the cars to accommodate them and take them where they needed to go; there were groups of men and women, all laughing and cutting up, on their way to parties; there were obvious business men and women, wearing suits and carrying cases of papers, talking on phones, making deals. I was bumped into, stepped on, and pushed, being the only one who was taking the time to observe everyone and everything. One particular heavyset man knocked me out of the way and nearly into the street, which freaked me out since the cars just kept coming and coming, not bothering to slow when I teetered on the edge of the curb. The man who knocked me out of the way just continued hustling, stopping only to pull out an iPhone and begin yelling into it, and I watched him blankly.  
        A fat drop of water landed directly on my nose, and I adjusted my head to watch the sky, getting several more drops to land on my face. The sky was beautiful, and the lightning that I saw made me pause for another moment, hoping to see another bright flash. A crash of thunder made me jump and realize that it was beginning to pour, which was exactly what I was hoping to avoid, and I glanced around to see where I could go to get out of the rain. One of the taller buildings around me had the name “Stark” lit up as a sort of beacon, and since the buildings near me weren’t allowing people inside I made a beeline directly to the entrance. As soon as I got closer, however, I hesitated: there were a lot of people inside, all of which wearing nice looking clothes and working or talking and laughing; if I were to walk in there with my too-big jacket and my bare feet, I would be stared at, possibly kicked out. The only alternative was to stand out in the rain.  
        Then I saw it: a dark, small building with wood over the door to keep it closed. There was no one around it, no one in it as far as I could see, and there was no name on it. It was unwanted, and available, and I instantly ran over to it, using an alleyway to find a window that I could climb through and take shelter in. No one noticed me climb in, which I was grateful for, but once I was in there was no light and it took me a few minutes for my eyes to adjust.  
        I was at the edge of a large, dank room with concrete floor that was cracked in a few areas. The air was stale and still, as if no one had breathed it in in several years, and all of the noises from the outside world was tuned to a dull roar; the only other sound that I could hear was the sporadic dripping from a leak off of a beam on the ceiling that was landing in a growing puddle closer to the entrance of the room. There was an old newspaper that was unreadable sitting next to the puddle, the majority of which being a pulpy mess from the water.  
        I walked towards the entrance slowly, each slight noise that I was causing ricocheting off of the walls and sounding louder than explosions. They echoed, reverberating around the room and freaking me out, and I paused each time until it stopped, which only caused it to start back up again as soon as I took yet another step. Since I was traveling at such a slow pace it took me a few minutes to make it to the hallway just outside of the room, but once I made it all the way out I was happy to know that the sounds didn’t echo near as much or as loud. I blamed this on the fact that there were several different rooms adjacent to the hall for the sound to travel through, but since a few of them were closed off, the doors sealed with nailed in wood just like the main entrance to the building, there was still that small amount of echo that filled in the empty spaces.  
        One particular room was littered with old papers from forgotten jobs, and a few desks remained in defiance of the tattered building around it. There was one desk that was broken from mold on the wooden finish, with splinters scattered about the floor in every direction, seeming to point at the walls around it in anger, as if saying, “this is your fault.” The room had an angry, depressing feeling to it, and I quickly left it, closing the door behind me to block the feelings away.  
        The next hour I spent searching the building, ensuring that I was, in fact, alone; there weren’t even any rats or mice. I was virtually the only living thing in that rickety old building. As soon as I determined this I ripped the jacket off and stretched my wings out in that first room I went in to, the one that echoed terribly, and felt my muscles creak and my joints crack. I was so sore from keeping my wings folded, as they were, that I didn’t even care that I was near a window, although I still did double check to ensure that no one was moving around in the alley against it. I sighed, rolling my shoulders and moving my wings out in a circular motion to try to stretch them out, but I knew that they wouldn’t feel perfect again until I was flying. I looked up, seeing that the ceiling wasn’t tall enough for me to fly comfortably and gave up on the thought of being able to fully stretch my wings.  
        I stuck my head partially out the window, watching as the rain fell like a blanket over the city and wishing that I could just go up to the tallest tower and watch it. I leaned my head against the windowsill and allowed my eyes to droop; my day had begun twenty-three and a half hours before and I was exhausted. I eventually drifted off into a less than peaceful sleep, knowing that when I woke up there was a lot that had to be done: I just wished that I didn’t have to ever wake.


	2. Unknown Meeting

        I woke to the blaring of car horns and yelling of people, which startled me and made me hit my forehead on the top of the window. I bit my tongue, drawing that bittersweet metallic liquid onto my taste buds, and clutched my head in pain. In a moment of confusion I looked around, expecting to see Dr. Ramsey rush in and pretend to care that I was hurt like he usually did, but found that I was still alone in the echoing room. I sighed but was happy: I was still free.  
        The dripping water had stopped but had gone from a puddle to a lake, filling up at least a third of the floor in the large room. The newspaper was floating about a centimeter off of the floor on top of the water, but was so pulpy that it looked like it was beginning to deteriorate. I looked up at the leaking beam and spontaneously jumped, flapping my wings once to bring me up to the beam; I perched myself on it, observing all of the molded sections of the wood, and was about to hop back down when I heard footsteps outside in the alleyway adjacent to the window. My eyes widened and I froze, my eyes darting back and forth from my jacket to the window, wondering if the person’s footsteps I heard were about to come to look inside. I could be seen, exposed, captured…  
        “Hey, I found how we could get in!”  
        I held my breath as a man in tattered clothes clambered his way through the window, tripping over the windowsill and falling on his face. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been in the situation that I was in. Another face peered through the window, this one just as tattered as the first, “Henry, are you sure that no one is here?” he asked skeptically.  
        “Of course I’m sure,” the one on the floor – Henry, – grumbled, “When have I ever been unsure?”  
        The one still outside narrowed his eyes, staring straight at my jacket, “Oh really? Then why is there a jacket in here?”  
        Henry shuffled over to it and gripped it in his grimy fingers, “Probably left from some other homeless person. Who cares: it’s mine now.”  
        My eyes widened as he draped my jacket over his shoulders: I needed that to cover my wings when I left the shelter of this place, and I couldn’t very well do that if he took it.  What was I going to do? “Henry, I think someone’s here,” the other guy said, climbing through the window more gracefully than his friend did, “We should look around first.”  
        “Sid, is that really necessary?” Henry asked, popping his neck.  
        “Henry, come on,” Sid whispered, stepping around the water on the floor, “And leave the jacket here in case the person comes back.”  
        “Fine…” Henry sighed, shrugging the jacket off and leaving it on the floor. They both left the room and once their footsteps were far enough away I hopped down off of the beam, spreading my wings out to slow my fall, and gripped the jacket, swinging it around my shoulders in the same fluid motion. A gasp from behind me caused me to turn around, finding Sid and Henry gaping at me.  
        They had seen my wings.  
        I backed up a step, my eyes so wide they felt like they were going to pop out of my skull, “Uh…”  
        “An angel!” Henry exclaimed, stepping towards me. His eyes were so brown that they could’ve been black, and his forehead was large and bulky; a scraggly beard was on his chin and traveled up to merge with a slight mustache above his upper lip. His head was entirely bald. “Sid, God has sent us an angel!”  
        Sid was awed by my presence, but didn’t seem as eager to believe that I was an angel like his friend did, “W-who… who are you?” he stuttered, his voice still deep and dripping with superiority, showing me that he was the one in charge, not his friend.  
        I backed closer to the window, “I’m sorry, you weren’t meant to see me…” I muttered, watching Henry look crestfallen. I observed him some more, seeing that his hands were large, his shoulders wide, but his face still had a childish twinkle to it. I furrowed my eyebrows, remembering a movie that I had watched back at the lab about two men in California during the Great Depression, called Of Mice and Men. I remembered being confused about one of the main characters, Lennie, because of the way he spoke and acted. Each thing he did was like what a child would do. I asked Dr. Ramsey if it was because of a cultural thing, from that time period, and he’d laughed, explaining that he had an intellectual disability. He told me that I was a “medical miracle”, but that Lennie would be considered a “medical disaster” because he was born with such a defect.  
        Henry reminded me strongly of Lennie, which led me to believe that he had the same or a similar defect as Lennie. He looked where my wings had been before I’d covered them, and looked down at his feet, kicking the air like a child does when they’re upset, and I felt bad for him. I looked over at Sid, who was still shocked, and looked back at the window where a slight breeze was rushing in, making a quick decision. I slowly slipped the jacket off and loosened up my wings, which caused Henry to gasp in excitement. He stepped forward but I put my hands up, sliding away from the window so that in case anyone came near they wouldn’t see me, “Ah, ah, ah, Henry: no touching, okay?”  
        “B-but…” he glanced over at Sid, whose face had gone white at the sight of my wings, “But they’re so pretty.”  
        “Awe, that’s so sweet,” I said, masking my terror and anxiety with a smile, “But you can’t touch them. Now, Henry, I can’t stay very long because—”  
        “Because you have to take care of your other people, right?” he asked, jumping slightly, “You’re not just my guardian angel, but other people’s.”  
        I blinked, “Um, yeah, you’re exactly right, Henry. You’re so smart.”  
        Henry giggled, turning to face Sid, and he whispered under his breath so I couldn’t ‘hear’, or so he thought, “Sullivan, my guardian angel is pretty and nice! Why aren’t you talking?” I was a bit taken off guard that Sid’s real name was Sullivan since the nickname ‘Sid’ didn’t go with it, but I didn’t know the whole story so I didn’t say anything. Besides, they didn’t think I could hear them  
        “Henry, I don’t think—” Sullivan began whispering.  
        “Sullivan, I’m not just Henry’s guardian: I’m yours as well,” I interrupted, taking him by surprise because I wasn’t supposed to know his real name. It helped to make him believe that I was a guardian angel, which was good. I felt bad for both of them, and was determined to help out in any way that I could, and since I didn’t have any money or food that I could give them I had to compromise, “I’m here to show you that this place is good for you to stay in. I slept here, to make sure it’s safe, to make sure that it’s comfortable, and I’ve decided that it’s okay for the two of you. You just have to be careful, because this beam,” I pointed up at the beam that I’d been perched on, “Has mold on it, and the wood looks like it’s rotting. If you avoid this room, then you’ll be safe.”  
        Sullivan’s voice was shaky when he spoke, “You’re… y-you’re…”  
        I smiled sweetly, “I’m sorry boys, but I must take my leave: I have quite a few others that I need to help. But if you’re ever in trouble, just remember that I’m watching over, all right? I won’t let you down.”  
        I put the jacket on yet again, ensuring that my wings were hidden, and jumped out the window, “Bye, angel!” Henry called out, waving at me, and I smiled and waved back before taking up a fast pace down the alley and onto the open sidewalk. There were twice as many people out as there had been the night before, but I was so freaked out by what had just happened that I hardly noticed; I had just been seen, and played it off as me being an angel. My heart was skipping beats in my chest as I bolted down the sidewalk, not caring where I was going or what I would find when I got there, but my stomach was protesting because of how empty it was. I hadn’t eaten in four days, and it was beginning to take its toll on me.  
        There was a hot dog stand coming up, and I followed the enticing smells to stand in line for it. I took the time while I was waiting to look around, seeing that I was once again in front of that large building with the name of “Stark”. I tilted my head up, staring at the balcony at the top and wondering who could possibly be rich enough to own a place like that.  
        “I know how you feel,” a woman in front of me said, following my gaze with a dreamy look plastered on her face, “I come out here every day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.”  
        I furrowed my eyebrows, not saying anything, and she continued, “I mean, it’s Tony Stark, you know? He’s big news: rich, powerful, and definitely handsome. He saved my life once, you know. Not many people believe me, but I swear to the lord that it happened.”  
        I looked back up at the name of the building, “How did he save your life?” I managed to ask, my curiosity knocking my paranoia aside for the moment.  
        “I was standing close to one of the Hammer Industry robots just before it blew up. It started flashing red and I just knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what it was. Then suddenly a flash of red and yellow swoops in, snatching me up and flying away, and as I looked over his shoulder the darn thing exploded. It would have killed me had Ironman not seen me and saved me,” she spoke in a daze, remembering something that was supposed to be terrifying but speaking as if it were the best day of her life. I had no idea what 'Ironman' was, but she seemed to think he was something dreamy. She sighed and looked down at me – she was wearing extremely tall heels – before asking, “Where were you when that happened?”  
        I raised an eyebrow, glancing at the dwindling line in front of us in search for a change in topic, my paranoia creeping back up on me, “You’re next in line,” I said quietly, and she made a little squealing noise that made me jump while she stepped up to the gangly man running the stand. I tuned her order out, my mouth salivating so much that I was afraid that I might start drooling, and watched him form her hotdog. My stomach was practically doing fist pumps because of how close I was to actual food that smelled so delicious and it took all I had to refrain from just reaching out and grabbing something.  
        The woman smiled at me, gave a little wave that involved her fingers wiggling like they were trying to break free of the rest of her hand, and walked off to whatever destination she was headed to. I stepped up to the stand and the man said in a gruff voice, “What’ll it be?”  
        “Uh, a hotdog?” I asked, confused since that was all he had, and he rolled his eyes while he prepared it.  
        “Plain?”  
        “Yeah…” I mumbled, and he thrust it into my hands saying, “That’ll be five bucks, cash only.” My eyes widened a little and I made a show of using my free hand to check my pockets for my ‘wallet’. I pulled the hotdog back and away from him, turning to ‘search’ my back pockets, and contemplated what I was going to do: I seriously needed the fuel, but I did  _not_  need to be getting into trouble here. I could bolt, hoping that he wouldn’t care enough to chase after me or call police; I could ask the guy behind me that was getting irritated if he would be willing to pay for my food. Both of those didn’t sound very good.  
        “Chick, there’s a line behind ya: you gonna pay for that or not?” the man asked angrily, narrowing his eyes at me.  
        At that moment there was a roaring sound like a jet engine overhead, and we all looked up to see what seemed to be a man in a red and yellow suit zipping past and onto the balcony of the Stark tower. Ignoring my curiosity, I took that as my chance and hightailed it out of there, running into the Stark building and ducking behind a corner, leaning against the wall and breathing rapidly. I anticipated someone running after me, grabbing me and taking my food or dragging me to a police station, but after five minutes I decided that I was home free.  
        I stared down at my prize and gobbled it down greedily; barely satisfied with all that I’d gotten but happy with it nonetheless. I stared around me and followed a sign that said “bathroom”, knowing that there had to be a water fountain near it, and I was incredibly thirsty. My mouth tasted stale and dry, even after eating the hotdog, and my teeth definitely needed to be brushed, but I didn’t have a way to go about that. Once I found the fountain I gulped down the water for a few minutes, not stopping for breath at all. It was cool and refreshing, and I wished I could take it with me everywhere I went, which was irrational, but nice to think about all the same.  
        A ding from an elevator behind me made me jump and I turned to find a woman with light red, orangey hair step out with a man with dark, nearly black hair and a black suit on. They both were in the middle of a conversation about flight times, but the man paused to notice me; I could have sworn he looked down at the bottom of my jacket, where the tips of my wings could be seen if my jacket wasn’t flat down, but when I glanced down in fear that they were visible I saw that they weren’t. I looked back up at them, but they had already moved on and were walking away from me. I looked back down at my bare feet and came to the conclusion that he was just staring at the fact that I didn’t have any shoes on, but something in my gut was telling me that something important just happened.  
        I just had no idea what.


	3. Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the length of this chapter, but I am pretty much using it as a transition to the next chapter.

        After the elevator incident happened I had gone into the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and sat there, trying not to freak out. I stayed in there for a few hours, ignoring the few people who had knocked on the door in order to check if someone was inside. Finally, after the sky had become darker than it was, I slowly opened the bathroom door, sticking my head out to see if anyone was around. Seeing that there weren't I walked out quickly in order to leave the building and...   
        And suddenly I stopped in the middle of the hallway, not knowing what to do: I had no where to go and nothing to do. The only thing that I had on my mind was to stay under the radar in order to stay free from the scientists. After that... absolutely nothing.  
        "Hey, miss!"  
        I jumped, startled, and turned to see the man who had been with a red headed woman in the elevator walking up to me, a kind looking smile on his face. My nerves were screaming at me to run, but I hesitated, his smile throwing me: he looked like he couldn't harm a fly, why should I have been worried? "Me?" I asked, pointing to myself as he came right up to me.  
        "Do you mind if I talk to you for a moment?" he asked, "Oh, where are my manners? I am Agent Phil Coulson," he held out his hand and I shook is tentatively while he continued, "I work with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, or SHIELD for short."  
        I blinked, "And you need to talk to me because...?"  
        "My boss would like to bring you in for... and interview, I guess you could call it," he told me, "For questioning."  
        "Uh, it was just a hotdog, I didn't realize--"  
        "No, this isn't about that," he interrupted, chuckling, which made me blush furiously, "This is about..." his eyes darted to my oversized jacket, "Other matters."  
        I paled instantly, all thoughts gone from my mind. I knew that this would happen: I was caught, trapped. Coulson noticed my fear, "Don't worry, we won't hurt you or test you, of that you have my word. We just need to speak with you in regards to your rather unique situation."  
        "Okay," I muttered, and I walked with him to the exit, where a black car was awaiting us. I slipped inside, Coulson joining me after, and found myself sitting in between Coulson and a woman with dark brown hair pulled up. I looked between the two of them as a driver pulled us away from the Stark building, "If... if you don't mind me asking, how did you...?"  
        "Know about you?" Coulson asked and I nodded, "You met two of our agents who were investigating a possible break-in at one of our establishments."  
        I watched Coulson watch me think over what he had said, and finally I realized what he meant, "You mean, Henry and Sullivan were--?"  
        "Undercover, yes," he nodded, "Their names aren't really Henry and Sullivan, but they used their goto personalities in order to check."  
        Ignoring the fact that I had trusted them to be simple, defenseless, homeless people and that they had betrayed my trust in them, I asked, "Why on earth would that abandoned building still be on your radar?"  
        "You didn't go to the basement," he stated, silencing me. I decided to change the subject, "When you say that I'll be questioned, does that mean that I have to answer all of your questions?"  
        "Yes."  
        "What happens if I decide not to answer?" I asked hesitantly.  
        "You're deemed an immediate threat to national security."


	4. Accidents

        "I don't do planes," I said in a rush, shaking my head rapidly. We had just pulled up to some sort of plane or jet thing and I was the only one still in the car, Coulson was standing next to the open door and attempting to coax me out to join them and everyone else made their ways into the jet.  
        Coulson looked at me like I had spoken in Russian or something, "You're kidding, right?"  
        I shook my head again.  
        "But you have wings," he stated, watching me in confusion, "Thus you can fly. And you're scared. Of flying."  
        "I'm only scared of flying in a steel death machine that I can't control."  
        "Aderyn, come on, we're flying this to the Helicarrier," he noticed my confusion, "You'll see what that is when we get there."  
        "I'm not going to get in that thing," I argued, crossing my arms.  
        "Come on," he coaxed gently.  
        "No."  
        "Get out of the car," Coulson ordered, losing all of his niceness instantly. Ignoring the screaming in the back of my mind, I jumped out of the car, walking next to him until we got to the entrance of the plane thing. He held out his arm, gesturing to the plane in order to get me to go inside, and while he looked at me expectantly and I stared at the plane in horror, I contemplated shoving him away and running until I could unfurl my wings and fly to God knows where. So long as I was far away from that plane I would be fine. And yet, in that moment, I put one foot in front of the other and ended up inside of the plane, being pushed into a seat. I flung the seatbelt on instantly, gripping the sides of the seat so tight that my knuckles were white.  
        Coulson stood across from me -- why wasn't he sitting? The plane was beginning to move and he would fall -- and noticed that as soon as it did I was extremely fearful and on the verge of tears. He crossed his arms, "Just try not to think too far into it," he attempted to reassure me.  
        I closed my eyes tight and attempted to focus on the fact that my wings were in pain being so cramped up: whenever I sat in a seat with a back on it, my wings had to fold tighter and in a new spot, which made my jacket lift up slightly, which was why I didn't like sitting down on seats with backs. Coulson took the opportunity to say, "Don't worry, it'll only take three minutes to get there."  
        I leaned forward, giving my wings more room -- they really did hurt sitting there with my jacket on -- and put my head between my knees, "I think I'm going to throw up."  
        "What if you just stood up and--?"  
        "NO!" I yelled, "I am not about to stand up in this thing."  
        "I personally wouldn't have wanted her to stand regardless," the woman spoke up or the first time, looking at Coulson, "What if she were to fling open the door and jump out?"  
        Now that I was thinking about it, standing wouldn't have been too bad, but of course, I wouldn't be allowed to do that anymore. Still, it was something nice to think about as I tried to forget about the fact that I was in a plane. Coulson continued the conversation with her, "I highly doubt that she would jump out of this thing."  
        "Why would you say that?" she wondered.  
        "Look at the girl: she wouldn't be able to walk to the door, let alone get it open."  
        "Hmm..." she was no doubt watching me at this point, "You're probably right."  
        At this point I was kind of irritated with both of them, but I kept myself from talking still. Coulson said, "I just can't believe that someone with such a helpful mutation would be afraid of flying in a plane."  
        "Helpful?!" my voice shrieked as I looked up at him, "You think having a mutation of any kind could be labeled as helpful?! If I were to walk around without this extremely uncomfortable jacket I would be deemed a freak, I wouldn't have a chance to be myself, and I would be taken in for studying!! And trust me, I've been through that shit before. If I were to openly use my wings, I would be taken back into custody," my voice broke on the word custody, but I continued strongly, "I cannot use my wings or else I will be screwed. The fact that you think that these fucking things are  _helpful_  just proves that you have no idea what the Hell you're talking about!!"  
        Several things happened at once as I yelled the last sentence: first, the plane landed on some sort of military looking floating boat thing that was so large that several planes and jets were on it. It was in the middle of the ocean, and I couldn't help but freak out silently about it. Of course, because of the second thing I couldn't focus too long on it: my voice became shrill, sending out a sonic screech that ripped out the plane's hull, sending metal out all over the place. Coulson and the woman I still didn't know the name of ducked down, covering their ears, and I squeezed my eyes shut as a shard of metal flew to where the pilot was at the front. I tried closing my mouth to keep the scream inside, but it was already coming out so strongly that I had no control over it. All I could do was hope that it died down quickly.  
        A sharp pain in the back of my neck made the scream instantly get louder, but after a second my screaming lowered several octaves and I was able to close my mouth. My throat was in a lot of pain because the scream kept coming for a moment, but it gradually died down entirely. Coulson was looking at me in a mixture of fear and admiration, and the woman was no longer on the floor but rather sitting next to me, her hand moving away from the back of my neck. She was holding some sort of shot in her hand. As soon as I noticed it, my body became really heavy, as did my eyelids, and I gave in to the moment and fell into the darkness encasing around my vision.  
  
  
  
  
        The first thing that came to my mind was that my head hurt. There was a pounding in my skull that made me want to scream-- and then suddenly the memory of everything that happened was there, taunting me with its terrifying realness and pain. My eyes flew open and I realized that I wasn't in the jacket anymore, meaning my wings were out in the open, and I was in some sort of glass encasement surrounded by a large room with electronic things in it. There was a monitor, a door that looked like you needed either a key or some sort of pass code in order to enter, and just a lot of wires and metal objects that made the room look interesting. What instantly caught my eye, however, was the man standing next to the monitor.  
        He was African American, was wearing a long black coat with an all black outfit underneath, had at least one gun on his person that I could see, and had an eye patch over his left eye. His entire demeanor read authority; his stance was perfectly straight, his arms were behind his back. His very essence made me think that he was a military leader or something. Whenever he spoke it only helped to prove me right, "So much trouble from such a young girl," he said almost accusingly, his voice sounding stern. I stood, grateful for the fact that the jacket wasn't on since I was able to extend my wings slightly to the point that it was comfortable, and watched him watch me for a moment before saying quietly, "Who are you?"  
        "Director Nick Fury of SHIELD. I trust Agent Coulson explained what SHIELD represents?" he didn't give me an opportunity to respond because suddenly he was talking again, "Now, you're probably wondering why you're in a glass cage, correct?" again, not given any time to answer, "Your little 'accident' earlier costed me the lives of three of my men."  
        My eyes widened and my heart stopped for an instant: I killed three people. Because I wasn't able to keep my power under control, I had killed three people. Fury decided to continue, "Therefore, you must be kept in there to prevent more casualties."  
        "B-but it was an acciden--"  
        "Exactly, an accident, and accidents can happen again. The fact that it was an accident makes it worse than if you had done it on purpose: had it been on purpose we would have made sure to keep you in here until we could trust you. Since it was an accident, that means that you have no way of controlling it: it could happen at any point, for any reason. It is for this reason that you have been deemed a threat to me and everyone else here," he watched me take in what he was saying with an unreadable expression for a moment before turning to the monitor that was next to him, "You're probably thinking to yourself that your power would cause the glass around you to shatter, giving you a way out of there, right?" I wasn't, but I wasn't about to say anything to him, so he continued, "The glass is thick and bulletproof, made to keep something a lot stronger than you inside of it, and doesn't shatter easy. Not only that, but you so much as yell and I'll press this," he opened up a thing on the monitor and a button was suddenly visible to me. He pressed something on the screen, and suddenly the ground around the glass cage I was in opened up, revealing open air and sky below me.  _Below me_ , I thought in fear: I was again in an airplane. Of course, based on the fact that the room I was in was large enough to be in an airport I figured that the entire plane itself was large enough to  _be_  an airport. That still didn't do much to help my nerves.   
        "You'll be sent down thousands of feet in a steel trap," Fury closed the floor, "You, of course, can fly, but that would require you controlling your power and using it to get you out of there. Do you really want to take that chance?" this time he paused to give me time to answer, but I kept quiet, "That's what I thought," he looked like he was about to say something else, but he brought his finger to his ear, listening to something. His eye flickered with excitement while he said, "Take him to the cage meant for the big guy and get him situated," he seemed to remember something and looked at me, "And make sure that the girl doesn't escape while you put him in with her." At that he walked away, the door opening as he approached and closing as he left, leaving me wondering what the Hell just happened.  
        I looked around the cage that I was in, happy that this was far different than when I was with the scientists: I had enough room to run around and actually spread my wings fully, which was what I did right then as I stretched: I hadn't been able to really do that enough since being on my own. I heard my shoulders, back, and wing joints pop, and after they did I sat down and bent forward, extending my wings above and around me so that they got enough movement to be nice and loose rather than how tense they were before. After a couple of minutes doing that I sat up and leaned back on my hands, my wings brushing against the floor. I was just looking around me, wondering why I had allowed myself to be dragged into this situation, when the door opened again, and suddenly all I could think about was the man who was being escorted into the room.


	5. Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aderyn meets Loki in this chapter!!

        The first thing I noticed about him were his eyes: they were vibrant blue, just so strikingly beautiful that I was somewhat drawn to them. His face was settled into a devious smirk, as if he knew something that the whole world would never know, and I couldn't help but wish that I was able to share with him in that knowledge. His hair was black, went to his shoulders, and was styled back, and I couldn't help but think that this was a very powerful man. His eyes locked on mine, and I was reminded of a snake and a bunny: the snake and bunny lock eyes, the snake moving its head back and forth, forcing the bunny to follow its movements. In this case I was the innocent little bunny, drawn in by the obvious danger sitting just in front of me.   
        I managed to pry my eyes away from the man long enough to notice that there were five men escorting him, each of which carrying guns. One of them broke off to go to the monitor that Fury had been standing next to while the others walked the guy to the still closed entrance to the large cage I was still in. The one by the monitor looked at me -- well, more like my wings: they were pretty distracting -- and said, "I'm about to open the door, keep the subject in check," he looked directly at me this time, while he ordered, "Back away from the door."  
        I sighed, looking at the ground, but backed up until my wings were touching the glass behind me. I expected the doors to open, but whenever they didn't I looked back at the man next to the monitor, who was looking at me in slight irritation. I watched him for a second, "Um, I'm as far away from the door as physically possible."  
        "You need to turn around."  
        I blinked, "Why...?"  
        "I was there whenever the plane you were on landed. I was friends with the men you killed. Turn around."  
        I breathed in quickly, turning around while I did so that no one could see the guilt on my face. I never meant to kill anyone: killing was something the scientists did, not me. I heard the door open, but I was too busy trying not to cry or hyperventilate or pass out to really care to pay attention. After a moment the door was shut and I heard the unmistakeable sound of the men's footsteps hustling out of the room and back to wherever that door led to, so I decided it was safe to turn around, but as soon as I did I found myself face to chin with the excruciatingly good looking man who was put in the cage with me. I was startled and tried backing up, but I ended up pushing myself against the glass, which made my wings get slightly hurt since I wasn't prepared for it, lost my footing, and started to fall sideways slightly.  
        Suddenly cold hands gripped my arms gently, steadying me, and in an elegant voice the man said, "Careful there, wouldn't want to fall," we stayed in that position for a moment, me imagining how far I could fall into those eyes and him observing me with obvious curiosity, when he finally let go, leaving an absence of feeling behind. He looked at my wings for half a minute before saying, "You are a fairly interesting one..."  
        I rubbed my arm, looking down, "Yeah, well..." I looked back up to see that he was looking at me in amusement, a smirk set in place out of what I assumed to be habit, and I couldn't help but wonder what he thought of when he looked like that. "What?" I managed to utter.  
        His smirk grew slightly, "You know not who I am?" he asked, but the way he said it made it seem like a statement. He chuckled, and I observed that he was wearing fairly interesting clothes: a long jacket that was leather and had green down it, black pants and shirt underneath, black boots, and gold on various parts of it. (A/N: PICTURE IS WHAT LOKI LOOKS LIKE DURING THIS SCENE)   
        "I'm sorry," I decided to say with a slight shrug, "I mean, I don't even know who the President of the USA is. Unless you're a movie actor from the 80s, I more than likely won't know you. Are you, um, famous or something?"  
        He was fully laughing now, but he stopped after a second, making me feel embarrassed, "Silly girl, I am not of your pathetic little world."  
        I blinked, not sure if I had heard him right: not of my world. I suddenly remembered a conversation I'd had with Dr. Ramsey once, after I'd seen a movie where an alien came to earth. It was a pretty good movie, but I was so freaked out because I thought that aliens existed. I'd asked Dr. Ramsey if aliens would be like the nice alien had been, or like the evil alien had been, and he'd laughed and told me that there was no such thing as aliens. But right then, standing across from that guy that looked so good and so human, I thought that maybe Dr. Ramsey had lied to me. After a moment passed I decided to trust my voice enough to speak, "Not... of my world?"  
        "I am Loki of Asgard, rightful ruler and king as a matter of fact," he watched how I reacted to that in a mixture of disappointment and amusement: I stared at him incomprehensibly, not knowing what he was talking about. He sighed, slightly irritated, and decided to change the subject to me instead, "What is your name?" as he said those four words his posture and expression reverted back into the amused smirk that he was so fond of.  
        I was kind of scared to answer at first, but I managed to say, "Aderyn."  
        "An interesting name for an interesting girl," he stated, making it seem like one of the best compliments anyone had ever given me. Of course, I didn't usually get any type of compliment, so there was that. "So, Aderyn: the reason you are in here is because you killed people?"  
        I looked at the ground again, "It was an accident."  
        "Ah," Loki's amusement grew exponentially, "But that's the worst kind of killing: if something can happen once by accident then it can happen again by accident. You're a wild card, aren't you?"  
        "Why are you in here?" I asked, changing the subject back to him.  
        In all seriousness, he smiled, flashing pearly white teeth at me, and said, "In the two days I have been on your planet I have killed over fifty people."  
        I backed up a step, against the glass again, my eyes widening in horror, "Oh God..."  
        "Exactly."


	6. Curiouser and Curiouser

        It took me a while to recover from the initial shock of what Loki had said: he was seriously dangerous and was just as bad as the scientists since he had killed so many people. Once I'd recovered though I became just as terrified because then Fury waltzed back into the room and talked with Loki. He had basically said everything to him that he had said to me about how the cage would fall from the sky, but afterwards, their conversation seemed to take on a whole new meaning.  
        "Ant," Fury gestured to Loki, then swivled to gesture at the button, "Boot."  
        Loki laughed, and I silently cursed myself for finding myself attracted to it: this guy was a mad man, and I thought he was handsome. "It's an impressive cage. Not built, I think, for me," he flashed a devilish smirk in my direction, "Or her," he then turned his full attention to a camera I hadn't noticed was there, "The mindess beast, makes play to be the man. How desperate are you? You call upon these lost creatures to defend you."  
        Fury looked surprised that he'd asked that, "How desperate am I? You hreaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace and you kill cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."  
        Loki smiled viciously, tauntingly, "Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract," I had no idea what that was, "To have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is."  
        "Yeah, well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something," Fury walked out, leaving my head spinning. I blinked a couple of times, attempting to process it all, but I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around any of it. All I could focus on was the fact that Loki killed for fun. A ton of people, in fact.   
        I slowly slid to sit, watching Loki cautiously as he watched the camera for a second before turning once again to me. We stared at each other for what felt like forever before I decided to ask, "Why would you do any of that?"  
        He smirked, leaning against the glass wall. Ignoring what I'd asked, he said, "I am under the assumption that your wings are a topic of discussion for most people who meet you. Therefore I am deciding to ask you this: were you born with them?"  
        "Uh, I don't really see how that could be of such a concern when I'm asking you about why you murdered people."  
        "I would imagine you were born with them," again, completely ignoring me and what I'd said. He tilted his head to the left slightly, "They suit you. Do you fly well?"  
        "You're insufferable."  
        "And you're intriguing. I'm entirely engrossed with you and in wanting to know more about you. Thus I would kindly ask you to answer my questions," he smiled slightly and I blinked out of shock, "Now, why don't you start with why you're so timid. Surely it cannot only be because of me?"  
        "Uh..." I didn't really know what to say to that. I had been complimented, and now he was asking me to share information about myself to him. It was like I had fallen down the rabbit hole into a completely alternate reality where I wasn't being hunted, I was intriguing, and a very handsome man was curious about me. I resisted the urge to hide or change the subject, instead choosing to clear my throat slightly, "Well, um, I don't know... maybe because of how I was raised?"  
        "Ah, so she can speak of herself!" he mocked clapping, flashing a wide smile, "Now we're getting somewhere. I was beginning to think that perhaps you could only talk about others."  
        I refrained from rolling my eyes, slightly worried that he would be offended by the gesture, "I just... I like to keep my life private."  
        "Flat lot of good that's done you."  
        I jumped to my feet at the sound of the voice, looking around cautiously: I had just heard Dr. Ramsey's voice.   
        "Aderyn, what, might I ask, are you doing?" Loki questioned, extremely curious as to why I had jumped and was looking terrified.  
        Ignoring him, I walked past him and to the edge of the cell, watching the room with caution. "Where are you...?" I mumbled quietly.  
        "Well," Dr. Ramsey said, suddenly appearing on the other side of the cell with the help of one of his other experiments, K-3. K-3 was a man of about twenty five, and he had developed the ability to teleport, which was why he and Dr. Ramsey were there. Upon seeing the both of them, I backed up until I was as far away from where they were as possible, barely registering that Loki was looking between me and them. Dr. Ramsey chuckled, "Aderyn, it's time for you to come back."


	7. Control

        K-3 was suddenly standing directly next to me, and in reaction to the fact that he was about to grab my shoulder I stepped out of his reach and kicked him in his face, sending him flying into the glass. Before he could touch it, however, he teleported so that he was standing upright behind me and gripped my wings, and that moment of  nauseousness twisting my insides gave way to me falling to the floor directly in front of Dr. Ramsey, having teleported outside of the glass cage. I was about to open my mouth to let out my scream, but Dr. Ramsey shook his head, "Ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you, Aderyn: you might destroy this entire vessel, sending each and every person plummeting down to their death. That would likely double your friend's statistics, wouldn't you agree? And I know how much you hate to kill people..."  
        As he was speaking he pulled out a needle, which shocked me into motion. I hopped up and flapped my wings once, sending me all the way back and to the other side of the large room I was in, and Dr. Ramsey shook his head again, "I hoped it wouldn't come to this. K-3, take this."  
        K-3 grabbed the needle, a sadistic smile plastered to his face, and disappeared, reappearing directly in front of me. I punched him in his jaw, sending him staggering backward, and then suddenly he was behind me, gripping my wings and pulling them back. I bit my lips, trying not to scream for fear of killing everyone, and twisted around so that he was no longer holding me and I kneed him in his groin, sending him crumbling to the floor. He disappeared, no longer even in the room as far as I could see, and I turned to find myself face to face with Dr. Ramsey.  
        I hesitated, unsure of myself and what I was supposed to do, but as he brought the now picked up needle down to put in my neck I threw away all hesitation, closed my eyes, and screamed.  
        I could hear nothing but the pounding in my head, but based off of the force coming from my throat my screaming was... almost more powerful than usual, and that terrified me. I felt my knees give way beneath me while I slid down to the floor, the scream still going, and I opened my eyes a crack to see Dr. Ramsey forced up against the opposite wall, clutching his ears. There was a trickle of blood coming out of them. All around the room in front of me the machinery was shorted out, and as I remembered the fact that the glass cage was able to fall out of the ship we were in I was grateful for the fact that it was behind me and therefore unaffected by my scream.   
        K-3 teleported in and grabbed Dr. Ramsey, disappearing immediately after, in less than a second, and since Dr. Ramsey had just sustained brain injury from my scream I knew I was momentarily safe.  
        At that moment I began to panic, finding myself unable to stop my scream from coming. I forced my hands over my mouth which muffled the sound, and I curled forward, my face and hands in my knees, and wrapped my wings around myself. I barely registered the fact that my shoulders were shaking from sobs, too busy forcing the scream to fade away into silent cries of fear and pain. The pounding in my head wasn't letting up so I didn't hear when the doors were opened until there were people surrounding me, guns trained on me.   
        Sighing in order to stop crying, I sat back up and looked around me: not at the people, but at the damage I had done. The glass from the cage I had been in was cracked at the top and bottom; the machines were shooting out sporadic sparks in all directions; the metal door was unhinged; shards of metal from the things around me were impaled in the walls. I had caused a lot of problems.   
        My eyes scanned the faces of all of the people around me, avoiding the weapons that were pointed in my direction, until my eyes landed on Loki, who was looking at me with a mixture of concern and amusement, a mischievous gleam in his eye. I looked away immediately, embarrassed for showing weakness in front of him -- which, honestly, made me furious with myself for even caring -- and found that Fury was in the room as well.   
        "Follow me," he ordered, and I slowly forced my way to my feet, walking after him tediously in order to not step on any wires or shards of metal. I turned the corner after him, feeling my panic level gradually increasing: Dr. Ramsey had not only found me but almost captured me once more. Not only that, but after the way I defended myself he would most definitely be back and with a vengeance. I could only guess what he would do to me or who he would bring along to help him.   
        My hands were shaking as my nerves escalated, and felt myself teetering precariously over the edge of the chasm within myself, just between the edge of my sanity and unconsciousness. I was freaking out, I was terrified, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do about this. I didn't even so much as know where I was going or if Fury was taking me somewhere to shoot me in the head executioner-style or to interrogate me or to congratulate me for keeping a "level head" or some shit. For all I knew he was working with Dr. Ramsey and was taking me to punish me somehow. It was all beginning to feel more and more fake, like any second I would wake up and find myself on the floor of the lab, having passed out from extensive experimentation. I would open my eyes and rub them, and Dr. Ramsey would chuckle and welcome me back to the land of the living.   
        "Are you coming?"  
        I looked up at Fury -- how did he get so far down the hall? -- and realized that I was standing still. Well, as still as a shaky person can stand. Fury was watching me, his hand resting where I knew his gun was, and I looked back down at my hands once I realized what he was doing: he thought I was about to scream again. I cleared my throat and heard all of the guns the men behind me were holding aim up at me once more, Fury whipping his out and doing the same. "I'm, uh, not going to..." I stopped speaking, looking back down at my hands and felt a wave of tears crash into me. I covered my mouth with my right hand, my left one gripping my elbow, and I forced myself to walk to Fury. He hesitantly put his gun away but was watching me with -- was that concern shining through his eye? He began walking once more and I followed him down the hallway, passing a room with really large windows. Inside were two men.  
        The first one looked to be in his thirties or forties, with wavy brown hair and brown eyes, a purple, button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and brown pants. He was messing with a flat, touch screen computer that was see through. The other was wearing a Black Sabbath, long sleeved shirt, the sleeves also rolled up, jeans, his hair was black, he had one of those "special" beards that look somewhat designed, and also had brown eyes. Once Fury and I walked passed, they both looked up and watched me, both seeming to be somewhat calculating something about me. I instantly averted my eyes and picked up the pace after Fury, feeling extremely uneasy by just looking at them: they seemed like scientists, and I had a bit of a phobia of those after my life being how it was.   
        Fury led me to a room not too far down from where the two men had been, and as I entered he gestured for me to sit in a chair at the only table there. It was metal and reminded me of some of the movies I had seen where someone was being interrogated in a police station, which only made me realize that I was being interrogated.   
        Fury shut the door, two men standing on either side of it while the rest of them were outside, and he turned to me. "Care to explain to me what just happened?"  
        I took a deep, shaky breath, "Where do you want me to start?"


	8. Monsters

        My head was on the table and I was silently crying. I had just finished telling Fury everything about the labs and about me and my life and he left rather abruptly, saying he would be back after speaking with someone. About me. Digging up all of the memories and fears from my past left me feeling empty inside, so I was crying. I didn't like it, but I was.  
        I was exhausted, realizing that I needed to get some form of sleep soon, but I was afraid of what would happen once I did that: Ramsey or one of the other scientists might use K3 to get to me again sooner rather than later, and if that happened then I would be left vulnerable and defenseless, which was not something I was willing to allow. Regardless my eyes were becoming heavy and if it weren't for the fact that the door opened in that moment then I would have fallen instantly asleep.   
        "Hello, Aderyn, is it?"  
        I slowly forced my head up to see the guy with the purple shirt from earlier looking down at me, concern shining through his eyes. I looked away, wiping my eyes with the heels of my hands: it was incredibly embarrassing having someone you don't even know notice you crying. After a few moments I realized that he was leaning against the wall not too far in front of me, just observing me, and I looked down, feeling my cheeks blossom with embarrassment. He didn't say anything more, he just remained in silence, calculating my every movement. When my wings twitched I could feel his eyes pinned on them, drinking in their existence. Finally I sighed and without looking up said, "Yeah, I'm Aderyn."  
        "That's a type of bird, right?" he asked, keeping the conversation small but laced with something a bit more... I didn't really know the word for it, but it felt almost hostile towards me.   
        I looked down at my hands, "Some people have a sense of irony."  
        He chuckled, "Seems like it." Everything he said -- which wasn't much -- was simple and had an odd combination of hesitance and friendliness, and I hated every second of it. He responded to me the way that the scientists from the lab always did, with calm calculation and a slight amount of respect, and I loathed him for it. He seemed to notice my resentment, "Is there something wrong, Aderyn?"  
        "Yeah," I admitted, finally looking at him. He really seemed interested in how I would respond, which really threw me off, but I brushed it off and said, "I really just don't like you."  
        "And why is that? You don't even know me," he pointed out, "You don't even know my name."  
        "What is your name?" I inquired.  
        "Bruce Banner."  
        "Well, Bruce, I really just don't like you," I breathed out, watching his confused expression turn to one of amusement. My wings ruffled and I blinked, "What's so funny?"  
        "You claim you don't like me, but you don't seem too keen on telling me why," he smiled.  
        I narrowed my eyes, "Why did they send you in here with me?"  
        That threw him off, "What?"  
        "Why did they send you in here with me?" I repeated, drawing my finger along a scratch in the metal table, "Fury is obviously some sort of interrogator extraordinaire, or at least a spy or something: the man practically oozes importance and stealth. But instead of sending him back through or even one of the armed men in love with their ridiculous toys of destruction, they send in a scientist. Are they so confused by my mere existence that they need to send you in here to determine that I am, in fact, a real  _thing_? That I won't just evaporate into the air around us? Because if that's the case then they shouldn't even bother."  
        Banner was stunned into silence, but after a second he sort of gave a  stressed half smile, like he was almost disappointed in something, "You recognized I was a scientist just because of how I hold myself, right? By how I carry myself around and do things? Because that means that you were being honest when you were talking about yourself, that you really have been in a lab your whole life," he sighed, shaking his head, "That must be tough."  
        I couldn't help myself: I snorted. I was laughing with so much bitterness that for a split second I was afraid that I would let out a scream from my throat that would kill the poor man in front of me, but the moment soon passed and I spoke once more, "You're kidding, right?  _That must be tough_? Are you fucking stupid?"  
        Bruce looked weary of me and tensed up his shoulders, suddenly looking more and more like the monster that all scientists are. He began to rationalize in his head that everything he did and said and noticed was correct in theory and some other scientific shit that I would never care to understand. "I was only saying that growing up like a lab rat must have been hard, and that I completely understand--"  
        "Liar," I whispered, putting my head back down on the cool metal, indicating that I was done speaking with him. He tried speaking more after that, but he finally got the hint and left the room, leaving me alone once more with my thoughts. After a few minutes I heard hushed conversation outside of the room between Bruce and Fury before the door opened and in stepped both of them. Fury gestured for Bruce to sit across from me but he refused, instead leaning against the wall and cupping his hands together. Fury instead took the seat, watching me in silence. I was staring at his slight reflection on the table, choosing to ignore the both of them and silently wish that I could just cease to exist.  
        Unfortunately Fury wasn't going to allow that to happen, "So you weren't lying about the labs."  
        I kept all expression off of my face and didn't say anything, instead watching his distorted reflection in the metal table. He continued, "Unfortunately that means that you cannot be left alone anymore."  
        That got my attention, "What?"   
        "You escaped from them, and even though you are here they managed to get on board and nearly take you back, which resulted in you causing destruction in the room you were in. In order to prevent that you will be under watch every second you are with us. I have people here who know how to--"  
        "No."  
        "Excuse me?"  
        "No," I repeated, crossing my arms, "I just need to leave, that way there will be no more deaths or destruction. Those people will not stop until they have me, and they don't care who they have to kill in order to get me. I don't want to be the cause of any more deaths."  
        Bruce was watching me with a tiny bit more admiration than he had before, and I really wanted to resent it but I couldn't and I didn't know why. Fury, however, looked a little angry, "The people I'm having you stay with have the capability of protecting you and protecting others from you. I'm sorry that you have decided not to accept this, but you aren't leaving. You would be a danger to civilians, and that is a risk I am not willing to take."   
        I slumped down but didn't say anything else: he had me there. I would be a danger to regular people, even if the scientists weren't coming for me.   
        "Now that that's settled, come with us and I will introduce you to the group," he stood, walking to the door, and gestured for me to walk out the door first, most likely so that he could watch and make sure that I didn't try anything stupid like screaming or running away. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands before I stood and walked out the door, my wings twitching from my anxiety of the situation. I heard both of them walking behind me, and it took all I had not to shudder: they were treating me like the animal the scientists created.   
         _Maybe that's all I am_ , I thought to myself,  _nothing but a wild animal in need of taming._  
        The thought depressed me.


	9. Acquaintances

      Not including Banner and Fury, there were four of them; four people standing around in a secluded room, waiting to meet me. That was the equivalent of twenty eyes on me, and I felt the force of all of their gazes: I subconsciously tightened my wings, tensing my shoulders, and wished that I could be back in the glass cage, where the only person I had to deal with was the attractive murderer. My face flushed and I looked down at my toes: I had literally just wished to be with a homicidal maniac.  
      I decided to look back up at them all, figuring that if I was being forced to deal with them then I would at least be able to look at them without fainting. I noticed that of the four people, there was one woman. She had short, curly red hair and was wearing all black. She had one of the looks that made me think that she could kill in several different ways without effort and would do so if I gave her a reason, so I averted my eyes and they landed on the man standing closest to me. He was standing with his back rigid and straight, with a look about him that made me think of the military. His eyes were focused and yet looked like they were elsewhere, reliving experiences, and it gave him a seriously wise expression. Just looking at him gave me back a little bit of comfort, so I didn't want to look away, but once my eyes met his I did just that, looking at a very buff man with shoulder-length, blonde hair. His arms were crossed and there was something familiar in the way he was holding himself, but at the same time he looked like the stranger he was. His eyes hadn't left my wings since I'd been in the room, so I let my gaze slide over to the only other person I had yet to see, whom was sitting on a round table with his feet hanging over the edge. He was smiling at me – the only one who wasn't giving me a look that said anything other than "hi" – and I realized he was the other guy who had been with Bruce earlier. Shining through his t-shirt in the center of his chest was a circle of blue light about the size of a fist. I had no idea what it was, but it did explain to me why he didn't mind my physical abnormality: he had one of his own.  
      Fury cleared his throat while Banner went over and leaned against a wall, "As you all know, this is Aderyn. She is in our care and watch until further notice, and I am expecting at least one of you to be with her at all times,” he looked down at me I immediately felt small and weak but forced myself to remain upright. I furled and unfurled my wings, crossing my arms while Fury continued, this time addressing me, “You should get to know these people if you hope to be taken seriously.”  
      I uncrossed my arms and fidgeted with the hem of my shirt, nodding hesitantly. I glanced at the man sitting on the table again but looked away quickly since he had been watching me as well. Fury gestured for the men with the guns to leave and he started to follow them, but not before stopping to look back at me, “Aderyn, I would suggest that you keep your emotions in check. I would hate for you to find out the hard way what my team can do.”  
      I sighed, keeping myself from shaking out of fear, and looked up at the people in the room with me. Fury left with the armed men, leaving me and everyone else standing in an awkward silence that left me realizing that all eyes were on me, calculating me, drinking me in… I felt my heart beat accelerating and I knew my hands were shaking but I forced them still by drumming my thumbs on my thighs. I was unsure of who I should have been looking at so I just stared down at the ground for a moment, until someone cleared their throat.  
      “It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Aderyn,” the wise looking one said, stepping forward and extending his hand to me. I stared at it for a second and slowly reached my own out to him, gripping it weakly and allowing him to shake it in greeting. The corner of his mouth turned up in a half grin, “My name’s Steve, Steve Rogers.”  
I bit the side of my tongue and took my hand back, feeling my wings twitch, which instantly made him move his gaze from my face to my wings. I sighed, “Yeah, sorry… they’re a bit of a distraction, I know,” I reached my right arm across my stomach and gripped my left elbow, feeling my wings droop down a bit.  
      “They’re kind of growing on me,” the one sitting on the table said, sliding off and walking over to me, which immediately made me wary, but if he noticed he didn’t acknowledge it. He walked around me, observing me, and I shuddered.  
      “Could you stop that?” I asked, turning so that my back was to the wall.  
      “Hey, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m just curious, that’s all. I’m Tony, by the way.”  
      “Stark…” Steve warned.  
      “Oh, calm down, Cap’n, it’s not like I’m doing anything.”  
      I stared at Tony’s chest, nodding at the blue light, “What’s that?”  
      “This?” he tapped the light, “It’s the thing that’s keeping shards of shrapnel from getting to my heart. Basically the only thing keeping me alive.”  
      My curiosity was peaked, but I tore my eyes from him and looked towards the door, “So… since I’m no longer in the cage does… does this mean that I can walk around?”  
      “So long as at least one of us is with you, I wouldn’t think that would be a problem,” Steve said, shrugging.  
      I nodded, but was a bit let down by the answer; I had been hoping to get a few moments to myself, to catch my bearings, but I guess that wasn’t an option. I didn’t know these people. I didn’t know what Fury had meant when he’d told me that his team was powerful enough to take me. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay there much longer: I needed to get out, to protect people from myself and from the scientists. I needed to protect myself.  
      The walls were already beginning to shrink in on me again, and I was exhausted from my excessive panic attacks, but I wasn’t expecting for the room to begin to spin or for me to begin to collapse. Steve and Tony both caught a hold of either of my arms and everyone else tensed up while they dragged me to a chair, where they sat me down. I blinked, trying to get the room to steady out again, but after a few moments I felt my eyes closing on their own. Panic and apprehension set in, fear clouding my thoughts – I didn’t trust these people. Besides, what if the scientists were to come while I was asleep – but I could do nothing to keep myself from falling entirely unconscious.

 

 

      “Remember to be cautious with her once she wakes up: we don’t want another episode like earlier,” a female voice was saying, wading in through the darkness and coaxing me back to the land of the living. I fluttered my eyes open, finding my face laying on the table, and timidly raised my head, looking around; the only people in the room with me were the woman with red hair and the man with the long blond hair, both of whom were watching me from the other side of the table. The woman took on a look of sympathy and pity, “Are you feeling any better?”  
       I smiled bitterly, “Oh, yeah, loads.”  
      She shook her head, “I understand that given your situation that was a pointless question, but I was just trying to be polite. We haven’t been properly introduced yet, Aderyn; my name is Natasha Romanov, and this is Thor.”  
      Thor nodded in greeting, “You’ve already met my brother, Loki.”  
      My eyes widened and my wings drew in tight, “Your… brother?”  
      “Don’t worry, I’m here to stop my brother and take him home, not help him in his crimes,” he said while he laughed with a booming sort of sound.  
      I nodded like I understood but I was still very wary of him, and this woman, Natasha, was extremely intimidating as well. I stretched out my arms, my wings extending out and back while I leaned back over the chair and popped my back, my joints creaking: it had been a while since I had been able to do that, and it felt good. I yawned and rubbed my eyes, standing in the same moment. Natasha’s eyes didn’t leave me and Thor tensed up in anticipation once I turned and walked towards the door, stopping only once I was about to reach it. “Is there any way I could walk around and stretch my legs a bit?”  
      “Thor, would you mind walking with Aderyn? I have an interrogation to get to,” Natasha asked, walking to the door as well, still watching me in case she needed to step in, like I was going to try to make a run for it.  
      “Not at all,” Thor smiled a little at me, “I would like to talk to Aderyn anyway in regards to… private matters.”  
      That sounded a bit foreboding, but I didn’t say anything while Natasha opened the door and walked to the right, Thor walking with me to the left. The hallway was entirely empty, with doors all along either side, and as I looked around I realized that there were cameras everywhere, which reminded me of the labs. My nerves were shot but I gulped and did my best to ignore them. If Fury and everyone else had been working with the scientists they would have already given me over to them when I was unconscious, and I reminded myself that over and over while I followed Thor to a room that was large and had a ton of tables scattered about, each one with four to six chairs at them. There were two long tables along the wall in the back: one had drinks and silverware and condiments like ketchup and mustard and the other had trays and food, all kinds of food, and I realized that Thor and I were standing in a cafeteria.  
      Once the scent hit my nose my stomach grumbled in need, and I nearly doubled over from the force of it: I had been so preoccupied before that I had completely forgotten my hunger. Thor let out that booming laugh of his once more, “They told me that you might be hungry, but that sounded like thunder coming from your gut.”  
      I grimaced but chose not to respond, quickly walking over to the table with the food and grabbing a tray. I didn’t want to look even more like an animal so after I grabbed a sandwich and chips I slid the tray over to the other table, where I grabbed a can of room temperature Coke, and took the tray and the drink over to the table closest to me, sitting and looking up at Thor, “I… am allowed to eat, right?”  
      He nodded, sitting across from me, and I picked up the sandwich, not caring what was in it, and sunk my teeth in. My stomach grumbled again and I pretty much swallowed the bite hole. It had been so long since I had had an actual meal that I didn’t even bother to enjoy the taste. Looking back on it I couldn’t have told you what kind of sandwich it was, whether or not there was cheese or if it was ham or turkey, but I did end up eating four of them, with two bags of chips and a small bag of blueberries. I drank three cans of Coke and two water bottles, and by the time I was done Thor was watching with amusement and admiration, “I didn’t think that Midgardians could eat that much or that fast, especially one so dainty as yourself.”  
      I shrugged, my face red, “I just never get this much food,” or any food, I almost added.  
      Thor chuckled but looked a bit distracted while I got up and grabbed another bag of blueberries. When I sat back down, he leaned forward a bit, “I have been meaning to ask you a few questions regarding your time talking with my brother.”  
      I nearly choked on a blueberry and took a swig of water, nodding, “Okay…?”  
      Thor stared me straight in the eyes, “Are you interested in my brother?”  
      That time I did choke, and it took me a few minutes to get myself back to normal. Was I interested in Loki, as in… interested in Loki? Why the Hell would he even feel the need to ask that when 1, I had only just met the guy and 2, he was a murderer? “What?” I questioned, my eyebrows raised in confusion.  
      “Are you interested in my brother,” he repeated, “sexually?”  
      I coughed, giving an awkwardly nervous laugh, “Are you being serious?” when his expression didn’t change I cleared my throat, pushing the blueberries aside, “Loki killed people.”  
      “So did you.”  
      “I…” my voice trailed off and my body tensed, my wings tightening in, “Yeah, I-I killed people, but he wanted to kill people; I didn’t. There’s a difference.”  
      “Not much of one,” he shrugged, “Look, he’s my brother. I want to help him, killer or not, and if there’s a way to appeal to his better nature I will take it, regardless of what that might be.”  
      “What are you implying?” I was entirely confused by the situation I was placed in, and my wings twitched when I crossed and uncrossed my arms, unsure of what I should have been doing with them.  
      “What I’m saying is that I was watching the two of you when you were in the cage. I know my brother, and I believe that he is… interested in you. I also believe that there is a chance that you are interested in him.”  
      "Look,” I began, standing and walking over to throw the blueberries away: I had lost my appetite, “I don’t know what you think you saw, but there is no ‘interest’ from either of us. He was curious about my wings and I was…” I almost said curious about his physical attraction, but I caught myself, “I was curious about who he was, nothing more, nothing less. I’m sorry if you thought that you could somehow use me to get him to stop doing bad things, but that’s a bit… naive, don’t you think?” I turned back to face him and saw that he was standing, “Besides… I only just met him, and it was in a cage.”  
      Thor opened his mouth as to say something, but just then the doors opened and an armed man walked in, looking between us, “You’re needed in Dr. Banner’s room,” he ordered, “Immediately.”  
      “Both of us?” Thor asked, walking briskly through the door, me following hesitantly.  
      “Yes,” the man said, practically running down the hallway and turning down where I hadn’t been yet. Thor was following just as quickly, but I was trailing behind, noticing that there weren’t really any other people around. I slowed to a stand still: I could just go back find an exit…  
      “Aderyn?” Thor turned back, looking at me like a confused puppy. I glanced behind me at the empty hallway, but before I could fully think it through I jogged to catch up to Thor. He grinned – all teeth – and we followed the armed man down a few different hallways until we were back down a hallway I recognized and we passed through a doorway into the room that Banner and Stark had been in earlier. Banner, Stark, and Steve were all staring at Fury like they were irritated with him, Steve looking somewhat lied to. Natasha walked into the room as well, her eyes focused on Bruce, and he looked at her, extremely pissed off.  
      “Did you know about this?” he asked, accusing something.  
      “You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?” she calmly asked, and I got the feeling that I was missing something important.  
      “I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed.”  
      “Loki’s manipulating you,” she stated, trying to get him to calm down, but he looked even more irritated that she said anything.  
      “And you’ve been doing what exactly?”  
      “You didn’t come here because I bat my eyelashes at you.”  
      “Yes, and I’m not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy. I’d like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.”  
      “Because of him,” Fury answered, pointing at Thor, who looked stunned. I just looked on with wide eyes, arms crossed and wings drawn in, my nerves frazzled.  
      “Me?” Thor asked, half pointing towards his own chest.  
      Fury continued, “Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge mass that leveled a small town,” I eyes widened even more so, realizing that Thor and Loki were both in fact aliens and that I was in way over my head. “We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, out gunned.”  
      Now Thor was looking a bit irritated, “My people want nothing but peace with your planet.”  
      “But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And, you’re not the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, they can’t be controlled,” Fury was looking at everyone at once, me included, and I again felt small compared to everyone else while at the same time included in something greater than myself. It was entirely unnerving.  
      “Like you controlled the cube?” Steve said his voice laced with accusation and resentment.  
      Thor was nearly beside himself, “Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is the signal to all the realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war.”  
      “A higher form?” Steve asked.  
      “You forced our hand,” Fury said, “We had to come up with something.”  
      “Nuclear deterrent,” Tony spoke up sarcastically, “Cause that always calms everything right down.”  
      “Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?” Fury asked, this time being the one to accuse something, though I didn’t know exactly what.  
      “I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep—” Steve began, but Tony cut him off.  
      “Wait, wait, hold on; how is this now about me?”  
      “I’m sorry, isn’t everything?” Steve retorted.  
      “I thought humans were more evolved than this,” Thor said, sounding above everyone.  
      “Excuse me, did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?” Fury asked, exasperated.  
      Thor looked at him in anger and confusion, “Do you always give your champions such mistrust?”  
      “Are you really that naïve?” Natasha asked Banner, “SHIELD monitors threats.”  
      “Captain America is on potential threat potential watch list?” Banner asked in disbelief and anger. I backed up a bit, watching everyone; you could have cut the tension in the room with a knife, and it was making me nervous in anticipation for the worse. I had my lips pressed tightly together; worried that something would happen that would make me lose control again.  
      Tony looked at Steve, “You’re on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?”  
      “I swear to God, Stark, one more crack…” Steve began.  
      “Threatening! I feel threatened!” Tony shouted.  
      The staff thing on the table behind Banner began to glow blue on the tip, and I watched it in confusion. No one else seemed to notice it, being too busy arguing with one another, and I opened my mouth to bring attention to it but Fury looked at me in anger, “Not one peep out of you, is that understood?”  
      I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything, having seen that he hadn’t realized that the staff was doing something. I shook my head and raised my hands in mock defeat, watching everyone have at it.  
      “You speak of control, yet you court chaos,” Thor was saying.  
      “It’s his M.O., isn’t it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re… we’re a time bomb,” Bruce said.  
      “You need to step away,” Fury coaxed, still angry but starting to catch on to something.  
      Tony put his arm around Steve, “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?”  
      Steve shoved him off, “You know damn well why! Back off!”  
      Tony got in his face, “Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.”  
      “Big man in a suit of armor,” Steve began, and I realized in that second that Tony Stark was Ironman, that guy that the woman from the hot dog stand had told me about. I mentally face palmed once I figured it out, knowing that I should have remembered it before then, but considering all that had happened and all that kept happening, I was kind of surprised that I had remembered the woman at all, “Take that off, what are you?” Steve asked.  
      “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” Tony responded instantly.  
      “I know guys with none of that worth ten of you,” Steve retorted, “Yeah, I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”  
      “I think I would just cut the wire.”  
      Steve smiled bitterly, “Always a way out… You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”  
      Tony lost it, “A hero? Like you? You’re a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”  
      I sucked in a gasp of breath, his comment hitting home for myself. I was learning more and more about the people in front of me, and it was turning out that I was similar to a few of them in different ways.  
      Steve stepped up a little, “Put on that suit; let’s go a few rounds.”  
      Thor laughed his booming laugh again, “You people are so petty… and tiny.”  
      Tony rubbed his head, moving away from Steve. Bruce looked a bit snarky, “Yeah, this is a tee…”  
      Fury stepped in, “Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back to his—”  
      “Where?” Bruce cut off, “You rented my room.”  
      “The cell was just in case—” Fury began, but Bruce cut him off again.  
      “In case you needed to kill me, but you can’t I know, I tried!” the room was silent, everyone stunned by the realization that Bruce had attempted suicide, and I was confused. Why would they need to kill him, why would he need to use the cell…?  
      The pieces were beginning to fall into place as I remembered what Loki had said when he and Fury had been talking. He had said something along the lines of “the mindless beast, makes play to be a man” in regards to who the cell belonged to… Was Bruce some sort of animal?  
      “I got low,” Bruce continued, “I didn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!” Bruce was growing more upset by the second and I couldn’t help but notice that his features were almost possessed. He looked directly at Natasha, who was looking unnerved, and I couldn’t blame her: had Bruce directed that gaze on me I might have passed out from fear. “You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?”  
      Natasha and Fury both had their hands down near where they had their guns, looking wary, and Steve lost almost all of his anger and took on a calming, coaxing face, “Dr. Banner… put down the scepter.”  
      Bruce looked down, shocked to see that he had absentmindedly grabbed the staff – scepter, I guess – and I looked just as shocked, not having even noticed his hands moving. In that moment the computer beeped, making me jump and bite the side of my tongue hard in order to keep me from opening my mouth, worried that I would scream.  
      “Got it,” Tony announced.  
      Bruce put the scepter down on the table, walking over to the computer, “Sorry, kids: you don’t get to see my little party trick after all.”  
      “Located the Tesseract?” Thor asked.  
      “I can get there faster,” Tony said.  
      “Look, all of us—” Steve began, but Thor cut him off.  
      “The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it.”  
      Tony was about to leave, but Steve stopped him, “You’re not going alone!” Steve protested.  
      “You gonna stop me?” Stark asked intimidatingly, but that didn’t stop Rogers from stepping up to him.  
      “Put on the suit, let’s find out.”  
      “I’m not afraid to hit an old man,” Tony said, and I was once again confused. Was he implying that Steve was old? He looked relatively the same age as almost everyone else in the room.  
      “Put on the suit,” Steve stepped closer, looking a bit menacing.  
      Bruce let out a small gasp, “Oh, my God.”  
      Suddenly there was an explosion and I lost my bearings as I went flying back and into a wall, the room and everyone else in it tumbling around until I was seeing stars. I heard Steve and Tony’s voices, frantically saying something to one another, but I was disoriented so I didn’t know what was actually being said. What was going on? I peeled myself off the floor, gripping my head, my wings partially wrapped around my shoulders in an attempt to keep me steady. Fury was sitting; grabbing his ribs, and was speaking into an earpiece.  
      “Stark, you copy that?” he yelled into it, no doubt having heard something else, but the room was still spinning and I was having trouble comprehending anything around me. Fury and I were the only ones in the room, and before I could think any further I walked out into the hallway, looking around. There weren’t any people around me, but I could hear all of the chaos coming from other parts of the ship thing, an alarm ringing throughout the entire hull. I walked to the left of the room I had been in, tripping and falling into the wall but using it to catch myself and hold myself up. I was confused and my head was hurting, but the dazed feeling was beginning to subside, leaving my thoughts and emotions numb. The world around me was hectic, confusing, but I overlooked that all and continued walking forward, seeing this as an opportunity to find an exit and fly away to wherever, just away from there.  
      I seriously believed that I was going to be able to get out of there, but in that second a roar of pure rage and hatred ripped through the pulsating air around me and struck up all of the fear that I had been forcing down. It was primal, animalistic… and in that moment I knew that it was coming from Bruce Banner.


	10. The Hulk

       His roar might not have been as loud as my screams could get, but it was the loudest thing I had ever heard that didn’t come from my own throat. I was looking around frantically, thinking that he was in the hallway with me, but once I heard yelling and crashing sounds coming from farther into the ship I breathed a little easier knowing that Banner wasn’t near me.

       “Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” I whispered, turning and jogging back the way I’d come. I didn’t want to figure out what had happened to Banner or anyone else: I just wanted out. But when I heard a big crash and Thor yelling afterwards, saying, “We are not your enemies, Banner! Try to think!” followed by more crashing sounds, I paused mid-step. I turned back, looking down the hallway that led to stairs, and then glanced back where I was running towards. I didn’t know where the nearest exit was, nor did I know what I would encounter once I managed to run farther away. Of course, I didn’t know what I would encounter once I got to where Thor and Banner were, either…

       “Of all the fucking things...” I breathed, sprinting back towards the stairs. I threw my chance of escape out the window, running to help Thor and Banner rather than help myself. I didn’t know why I was, but I was, and that freaked me out a little. I jumped over the railing, extending my wings out and gliding down so I landed on my feet, taking off at a run, my wings tucked in tight because the hallway was narrower than any of the others.

       The yelling and crashing sounds were getting progressively louder as I progressed, which made my step falter and I nearly tripped, but I steadied myself and ran until I came into a room that had a lot of machinery and broken glass scattered about. I slowed to a walk, carefully avoiding the larger pieces of glass and watching where I stepped, until I saw Natasha crumpled up on the floor. She looked like she had been thrown into the wall, but I saw her chest rise and fall so I knew she was relatively okay so I looked further into the room to see that there was a gaping hole that lead to the grunts and the crashing, fighting noises. I flapped my wings to get past the glass, flying through the hole before I could think further into what I was doing, and narrowly avoided being hit by what looked like a piece of a jet by flapping my wings hard and propelling myself up until I was touching the ceiling.

       What I saw made my stomach drop to my knees and my heart palpitate, for standing not that far away from Thor, running towards him in fact, was an enormous green… monster. His facial features were similar to Banner’s – which only proved that he was, in fact, Banner – and he was pretty much a giant mass of green muscle. His green eyes landed on me and he roared, taking a step in my direction, but it was enough of a distraction for Thor, who immediately threw a really cool looking hammer at Green Banner Monster Thing, which sent him flying back head over heels until he landed, the hammer on his hand. He jumped up and pulled on the hammer, but much to both of our surprises nothing happened. He couldn’t lift the hammer. He pulled and pulled, letting out a roar and even digging his feet into the ground, but then Thor jumped and kneed him in the face, reaching down and grabbing the hammer and using it to pull Green Banner Monster Thing into a choke hold.

       After a moment of Green Banner Monster Thing flailing about and trying to get Thor off of him the two of them went crashing down through the floor and into a new room. I lowered myself to the ground and watched the two of them, terrified for both them and myself. I didn’t know what was happening; I didn’t know why Banner had turned into that green monster; I didn’t know why Thor’s hammer was too heavy for Green Banner Monster Thing to pick up when he had so obviously been able to throw a jet at Thor and, in turn, me. All I knew was that I was being a dip shit and not running when I had the chance, but at that moment, when I saw Green Banner Monster Thing lift Thor up by his neck, I realized that I was emotionally attached to them. I needed to see this thing through if I wanted to figure anything else out, and I didn’t even fully understand why.

       All of a sudden there was a shower of bullets coming through the windows in the room that Thor and Green Banner Monster Thing were in, and I covered my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream. Thor jumped out of the line of fire and GBMT just looked even more pissed off than he had been originally, letting out the monstrous roar he had let out earlier. He took a running leap out of the ship, landing on the jet that had been shooting at them, which sent the jet spinning out of control because of his weight. I hopped through the hole and ran over to Thor, watching Hulk rip pieces of the jet apart.

       “What the fuck is going on?” I questioned, speaking so fast that my words came out higher pitched than my voice usually was. I was forcing my voice to be tight, keeping in a scream that I knew was going to come out eventually.

       “Save them!” Thor yelled, running back into the ship, and I watched as the pilot of the jet shot out of the jet, no doubt using eject. But then GBMT grabbed his seat, roaring at him and shaking him around before he threw him, but as I ran to the edge, about to jump after him and help him out, his parachute deployed and he floated away safely. I breathed out a sigh of relief, looking up at GBMT just as the jet exploded, the force sending me back into the room and him away, flying towards the earth. I screamed, the rest of the room around me that hadn’t already been destroyed getting demolished by the sheer force of my scream. I was terrified, worried, and anxious, and I was feeling a bit angry for being in the situation at all. I jumped up and took a running leap out of the hole, extending my wings and feeling the wind ruffle through my dark feathers as I flew out and away from the ship, towards GBMT who was screaming and roaring, writhing about with his arms and legs flailing. I flattened my wings in on me, dive bombing straight towards him, and shot out my wings in the last second as I grabbed GBMT’s arm, using all of my strength in an attempt to slow him down, but he flung his other arm up and swatted me away like a fly, sending me summersaulting away in the air. I was seeing stars, the world spinning around below me, but instinct took in and my wings almost worked on their own, steadying me and keeping me aloft. I shook my head, diving towards him once more, but this time instead of grabbing his arm I grabbed a hold of his foot, narrowly avoiding his other one as he tried to kick me off of him.

       “I’m trying to help you!” I screamed, causing him to cover his ears and roar, my scream no doubt having hurt him, and I was worried that I had caused permanent damage to his mind since he was so close to me. He stopped fighting as much and we began to slow, but my wings and arms were strained from trying to hold us both up. I looked down at his eyes, seeing that they were looking a bit browner, and in a very deep set but somewhat Banner-like voice he said, “Can’t help… let go.”

       I hesitated but my wings protested, tucking in all on their own because of the pain of keeping the two of us up, and I closed my eyes and let go. I watched him fall for a moment, wondering what the fuck was going on with me and with him and with everyone else on that god damn ship, before I once again dove after him, knowing that he would more than likely die from the impact once he reached the ground, and I decided in that split second to shoot past him, stopping a few hundred feet below him and tilting my body angled up. I screamed, focusing on keeping the frequency low so that it wouldn’t turn his brain to mush, and allowed the scream to flow through me, almost becoming some solid force that pushed on Bruce and caused his descent to slow drastically. I used my wings to fly myself down, adjusting my positioning every second so that I would remain directly under Bruce, and used my voice as a cushion, keeping Bruce from falling to his death. After a minute or so we were almost to the ground, about to hit a small, remote building as a matter of fact, so I stopped screaming and gave my wings a hard flap to pull me up and to the right, letting Banner crash into the building. He would be hurt, but he wouldn’t be dead, which was all that I had been worried about.

       I grabbed my throat, realizing that I had just used my power to save Banner’s life, and started laughing as I lowered myself through the collapsed ceiling: I was controlling my scream.

       Once I saw Banner I sobered instantly, watching as he laid there, his body and his color slowly but surely changing and shrinking, shifting back into the Bruce Banner that I had met before. I stared in shock and awe as he fully changed, and I realized in that instant that he was entirely naked. I averted my gaze and turned a little so I couldn’t see him, my face no doubt red from embarrassment for his lack of clothing.

       The sound of a broom falling to the floor startled me and made me turn to see an older security officer-looking man, standing slack-jawed and staring from me to Bruce, his expression a mixture of shock, confusion, and awe. “Uh…” I started, watching him take in the two of us, and he shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

       “Are you an angel?” he asked, walking closer to me, and I thought about his question for a second.

       I shook my head, “No, no I’m not.”

       He sort of nodded, “An alien then?”

       I couldn’t help it: I laughed a little, “No, not that either.”

       “Hey, it’s none of my business: I just work here,” he looked down at Bruce, “I think there are some clothes that would work for him. At first I didn’t think they would work, but then he shrunk down, so…”

       I thought about it and realized that his pants must have shredded off when he was falling through the building, because I hadn’t noticed he was naked until he landed. “That would be great, thank you so much,” I smiled, and he went hobbling away to go grab the clothes. I reached back, stretching my wings out, and rubbed them: I had put a lot of strain on them that turned out to not even be necessary. My throat was raw so I cleared it, letting a small smile spread across my face. Even when I had been tortured and forced beyond my limits by the scientists I had never been able to fully control my power that much, but once I realized that I needed to figure something out to help Bruce I reacted on instinct and just sort of did it.

       The security guard came back, a shirt and pants folded up in his arms, “These should—”

       Just then Bruce shook a little and began to sit up, looking around in confusion. He didn’t seem to notice either of us until the man spoke up, “You fell out of the sky.”

       Bruce seemed to start to come to a little, “Did I hurt anybody?”

       “There’s nobody around here to get hurt. You did scare the hell out of some pigeons though.”

       “Lucky,” Banner said, looking remorseful.

       “Or just good aim,” the man said, shooting a look over to me, “You were awake when you fell, plus…”

       I shook my head, not wanting him to mention me just yet, and Banner looked up at him, “You saw,” he asked, looking ashamed.

       “The whole thing, right through the ceiling,” he nodded, looking up, “Big and green and buck ass nude. Here…” he tossed the clothes down to him, and I averted my eyes while he slipped the pants on. The man waited for him to finish before he said, “I didn’t think those would fit you until you shrunk down to a regular size fella.”

       “Thank you,” Banner said, still not noticing me. I opened my mouth to say something but shut it again almost as quickly.

       The man paused for a second, “Are you an alien?”

       “What?” Banner questioned, a tad confused.

       “From outer space, an alien?”

       “No.”

       “Well then, son, you’ve got a condition,” he said matter of fact-ly and I couldn’t help but giggle.

       Bruce looked over at me and cocked his head to the side, “Aderyn what are you doing here?”

       I was about to say something along the lines of “nothing” when the man spoke up again, “This angel has some scream, I’ll tell ya. It was strong enough to keep you from falling entirely to your death. She doesn’t seem to like being called an angel though, so she must just be modest.”

       I laughed, “Thanks, but I’m telling you, I’m really not an angel.”

       He shrugged, “Whatever you want to call yourself, you’ve got wings and you seem to look out for your friend here. You’re an angel of some sort.”

       I shook my head but didn’t say anything more on the matter. Bruce looked up at the ceiling; “You… used your scream to stop me from falling as fast?”

       I nodded.

       “Wow, Aderyn,” he shook his head, a weak smile on his face, “I really don’t know what to say… thank you, for that… but, uh, I don’t think you realized that I would have survived a fall like that. Hulk is practically indestructible.”

       “Hulk?” I asked, completely brushing past the fact that I had controlled my powers for him and that it had been for not.

       “That’s the green guy’s name,” Bruce nodded, starting to climb out of the minor crater he was standing in. I reached out and gripped his arm, helping pull him up to where the security officer and I were standing.

       “Oh…” I said quietly, the adrenaline high starting to wear off. My wings began to droop, suddenly feeling much heavier than usual, and my arms were hanging loosely at my sides. My knees were shaky as well, and the memory of how Bruce – Hulk, I guess – was, how animalistic and terrifying he was, implanted itself in my mind. It was like I could still hear his primal roar…

       “Aderyn?” Bruce was asking with concern, lightly gripping my arm to help steady me. I just stared at him incomprehensively, my confusion and fear beginning to be a little too much for me. Then anger began to set in. What the fuck had happened? Who were these people? Why hadn’t I escaped when I’d had the chance? _What the fuck had happened?_

       “You,” I ordered, pointing at him, “I need you to explain something to me. Scratch that, I need you to explain _everything_ to me. What the fuck just happened up there? What _are_ you? Why didn’t they trust me when you seem to be more dangerous than I ever could be? What the hell is a Tesseract? Who are Thor and Loki, where are they from? Why is it that every—?”

       “Whoa, whoa, calm down,” Bruce said, holding his hands up partially, “How about we just sit down for a minute, huh? I can tell you anything you need to know.”

       “Fine,” I snapped, sitting on a broken piece of the ceiling and crossing my arms, “Let’s start with the questions I’ve already asked.”

       Bruce’s face fell a little and he rubbed his eyes, but he sat down next to me and didn’t complain. He looked over at the security officer whom had just settled in like he was ready to hear a good story. Bruce shook his head, sighing, “Okay, well… uh…”

       I leaned forward, my wings stretching out some. Bruce was looking a little lost so I decided to help him out a bit, “How about we start with an easy one: what just happened? One second I’m standing there watching the six of you yelling and fighting, the next there’s an explosion and everything goes to shit. Then to top things off there are gunshots all over the place and you turn into this enormous, green… monster.”

       Banner rubbed his face, “The people on that ship, SHIELD, are technically spies. A few days ago Loki showed up on our planet and stole the Tesseract from them, which is this cube thing with a lot of energy in it. It has the potential to solve our energy crisis, which is what they had explained to us when they brought us in,” his expression changed to one of bitterness, “What they hadn’t explained to us was that they were planning on using the Tesseract to create weapons of mass destruction. When we were all arguing up there it was because we had found out what they were really planning. I guess it just got a little out of hand.”

       I thought that over, “And the explosion?”

       “Apparently Loki can use the scepter to control people, which he did to several SHIELD operatives at their base, wherever that is, and he set up the whole thing so that they would come to get him while he was locked up in the Helicarrier. His major plan was to unleash the Hulk, that way everyone would be too busy dealing with him, with me, and wouldn’t stop him from leaving. At least I’m fairly certain that was his plan. I started working it out after… well…” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at the ceiling.

       I stood, pacing back and forth, and unfurled my wings, “So… the Hulk is… what exactly?”

       Bruce crossed his arms, watching me for a second before saying, “As you already know I’m a scientist.”

       I waited but when he didn’t say anything else my eyes widened and my blood froze, “You… you experimented on y-yourself?”

       Bruce got a sad look on his face and nodded.

       My heart was palpitating and my hands were shaking, my wings twitching. This man, this scientist… he experimented on his own DNA. He turned himself into this monster, just because he decided that experimentation was okay. I shook my head, backing up a bit, “You actually… How could you do that to yourself?” Bruce was about to say something but I cut him off, “Why would anyone willingly do something like that? You had the choice to leave yourself the way you were or to do some experiment, and you went with the latter? I can’t even comprehend… I _wasn’t_ given the choice. _This,_ ” I gestured to myself, “Was not my choice. A scientist decided that humans by themselves aren’t good enough so he created me: a scientist just like you. I was starting to think that you were different, Bruce. Really, I was, but… How could you do something like that?”

       Bruce cocked his head to the side a little, “I messed up, yeah, and I understand that, and I hate myself every day because of it. I do not need you to tell me how I fucked up. Yeah, you were forced into this, but don’t think that makes you so high and mighty yourself.”

       I backed up, “Bruce I wasn’t trying to—”

       “It’s whatever, Aderyn,” he stood, shaking his head, “I should probably leave,” he looked over at the security officer, who was standing in awe and watching us, “Do you have any sort of transportation to get me to New York City?”

       “Yeah, follow me and I’ll take you to a motorcycle that’s been here for a few days that no one has come to claim,” the security officer responded, walking off to wherever.

       My wings slumped, my body suddenly feeling like lead: why had I opened my mouth? I hadn’t meant to throw his problems in his face, but he was a stupid scientist who had experimented like the people who experimented on me. Of course, his experiment had been on himself, and it had resulted in him becoming a literal monster… perhaps that made him more like me in that aspect.

       I walked in the direction that they had gone, arriving outside just in time to see Bruce hopping onto a motorcycle. I stepped up to him, “Look, Bruce, I didn’t mean anything by what I said, okay? I’m just confused, is all…”

       “Yeah, it’s fine…” he said, looking at my wings, “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

       “And I you,” I nodded, rubbing my arm.

       He looked like he was about to say something else, but in that moment there was the sound of a jet and we both looked up to see Ironman fly over us, speeding off towards New York City. I looked back at Bruce; “I’ll see you there?” I asked.

       “Yeah,” he nodded, kick starting the motorcycle and driving off down the road. I watched him for a moment before I realized that the security officer was still standing there.

       “Thank you,” I said, running and jumping into the air, flapping my wings to propel me up and forward.

       No matter what emotions I dealt with, as soon as the wind was beneath my wings I felt powerful. I felt free. It was breathtaking and miraculous, and as I rose through the air and watched the ground fade beneath me I couldn’t help but laugh. Regardless of my problems, flying was the best thing in the world, and I was somewhat lucky to be one of the only ones in the world who could experience it.

       I snickered at the irony: I was lucky to be an experiment. It was only one aspect of my experimentation, yeah, but… it was the one good thing, the silver lining of my fucked up life.

       It was during that thought when the bullet hit me.


	11. Tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, people, I'm sorry for not updating for a while. I've been having difficulties -- both technical and otherwise -- but now I'm back on track and hopefully everything will be smooth sailing from here on. Anywizzle, in this chapter Aderyn deals with the aftermath of being shot. Now, I have never been shot before, nor do I have wings, but I have been researching what happens when you're shot by different types of guns as well as what happens when a bird's wing gets injured so hopefully I'm pretty spot on here. If not, don't get angry, just leave a comment about what I messed up on or what you liked or really anything and I'll keep it in mind for future chapters. Anywizzle, comment and favorite and all that jazz!

      It wasn’t so much the pain as it was the heat that I registered as I began falling through the sky. My right shoulder and right wing felt like boiling water was being poured slowly over them, but I couldn’t tell where the pain originated. As I fell, spiraling out of control with the world flipping as I did, I felt my vocal cords straining from the scream that I was forcing out. I couldn’t hear anything besides the blood pounding in my ears, and as the spinning became gradually more nauseating I squeezed my eyes shut: I wasn’t going to survive this.

     The scream was out of my control, worse so than any of my other screams had been before, but I still somehow managed to bite my tongue. All I could think was that my blood tasted weird, unable to fully focus on any specific pains since my shoulder and wing were overpowering and beginning to go numb.

     My mind started to go fuzzy, all thoughts gone besides falling. Falling, I was falling. What had actually happened? Was this what being shot felt like? Who had shot me? My mind was spinning worse so than my body, which ironically felt like it had disappeared entirely. I couldn’t flail my arms; I couldn’t even so much as open my eyes to see how close I was to hitting the ground. I was slipping away, darkness closing in…

     No, no, no, I’m falling. I am going to die if I can’t get a grip on my situation. I need to open my eyes, just to gouge how far down I am. I managed to flutter my eyes open only to see that the ground was approaching fast.

     I forced my wings open, screaming as the right one stretched out. The pain from moving it and putting any force on it at all was enough to make my breathing shallow, but the result was instantaneous: I went from a vertical descent to a diagonal glide. The pain was excruciating but the effect saved my life. I screamed as hard as I could, using the force to help control my fall. Right then in a meager attempt to protect my head from the impact I used my last bit of strength to flip myself over as I crashed onto the top of a building. The last thing I registered before I lost consciousness was the sound of my body impacting the rooftop.

 

 

     “I don’t care what you have to do, just get her conscious!”

     That voice… I knew that voice… Where was I, what had happened? Memories came flooding in, leading up to getting shot and falling onto a rooftop, and upon remembering that I heard myself gasp in pain.

     “Good, she’s awake,” the voice, male, said, but I couldn’t place who the voice belonged to. I recognized it, but…

     My eyes flew open, the sun nearly blinding me as I blinked rapidly. It was Dr. Ramsey’s voice. “Pull her up, no need to be gentle,” he ordered and I felt two sets of arms grip my own and yank me up, but my right side was sore to say the least so I lost my breath from the force placed on it. I was staring at Ramsey but I tilted my head and looked at my right shoulder, seeing blood, so much blood… I was hyperventilating, not even registering that I should scream and throw his ass off of the roof we were on: I had been shot, and I was losing a lot of blood. I moved my left wing to make sure that it could, and I tried to move my right one but the pain in it was worse than my shoulder and I let out a gasp and realized that I was crying. I looked down and realized that I was bleeding in a lot of other places as well because of the way that I had landed, but from what I could tell I was lucky enough to not have broken any bones.

     “Suck it up, Aderyn,” Ramsey growled, and I realized that he had something in his ears: it looked like after our last little ‘session’ he’d put what looked like hearing aides in.

     From what I could tell, the situation I was in could not get any better for me. All I could do was keep everyone talking and hope that I could figure a way out of the situation. I forced a smirk, “I really did a number on your ears, huh?”

     That got me a punch right in the face, and I knew that my nose was broken. I tried to control my breathing, but I was seeing stars and I was once again disoriented; the tears falling from my eyes weren’t helping.

     “I have been speaking with my superiors,” he began, rubbing his knuckles on my own shirt since blood from my nose was all over his hand, “And they have agreed with me that Project Aderyn should be terminated. Do you know what that means, Aderyn?”

     “You’ll ‘ave more dime t’ go fuck yourself?” I managed to pant out with a facade of defiance, my fucked up nose making my words come out odd, and that received me a punch in the gut. I groaned, nearly falling to the floor – my feet weren’t even under me – but the men who were holding me were forcing me to remain up. My entire body was in pain, and I was beginning to truly recognize the peril I was in. Project Aderyn was going to be terminated? Did that mean he was going to kill me? Dismantle me?

     “Keep that up and you’ll be tortured before I fucking destroy you. Would you like that, Aderyn?” he was trying to be threatening, but I was trying to drag everything out in order to buy myself more time. If I could just muster up a scream… “Well, bitch? I asked you a question.”

     “Screw you,” I mumbled, and he gripped my throat and pulled me closer to him, right up to his face where I could see tiny beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. “I think I’m going to enjoy this,” he whispered, throwing me down where I fell from the hands of his men and crumpled onto the ground. He kicked me in my side and I coughed out blood. He was laughing, kicking and kicking, but I couldn’t think past the pain.

     “Sir, we seem to have a situation,” one of his men interrupted right as he reared his foot back again.

     “What the fuck is that?” Dr. Ramsey asked, and I saw him move to the edge of the building, looking at something that was happening further into the city.

     I took that as my chance, taking a few deep breaths through my nose: I mustered up all of my strength and screamed at the men, knocking them both back. It wasn’t as strong as usual because of the strain on my body, but it was all I needed. I was thankful for the adrenaline, which helped me to pull myself up as fast as I could and jump into Dr. Ramsey, the two of us leaning on the edge of the rooftop. My strength was diminishing quickly but I managed to wrap my legs around him to keep him from pushing me off, wrapping my legs around his torso, “Fuck you,” I whispered right as I screamed right into his ear. I screamed as loud as I could for as long as I could until all of my strength was gone and I was collapsed on the roof. Ramsey had blood pouring from his ears, nose, and eyes, and I watched expressionless as he tumbled back, falling off of the roof without so much as a scream.

     I had killed him.

     A weak smile managed to break on my face, but as soon as the men were back over to me, guns pointed at my head, I realized that in all that I had done, in killing Dr. Ramsey, I was still in peril. I was going to be dismantled regardless of the fact that I had killed the man responsible for everything wrong with my life, for everything about me, in fact, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

     My eyes were heavy but I forced them to remain open while I stared up into the eyes of the men with the guns. I felt like one of those movies, where the hero is looking at the person or group about to kill them and he puts on the brave face and looks them in the eyes and tells them to do it. I was shaking but I was in so much pain; I didn’t know what to do. I was going to be killed, and I wanted to be brave. I wanted to put on my brave face and look into their eyes and whisper, “do it,” but… I wasn’t that brave. I wasn’t strong enough to do anything. I was entirely worthless, only good for being a thing to be studied and used for killing. I didn’t deserve the breath I was taking, regardless of how labored that breath was. Instead, I looked up and whimpered, “Please…” I was disgusting.

     The men held the guns steady, but right as I thought to myself that it was the end, a blast I didn’t see coming sent the men flying out of my sight, the guns falling where their feet had been but a moment before. I thought I was seeing things because I wasn’t expecting the men to be killed before they killed me, but I was so out of it that I was just assuming that the men hadn’t actually had anything done to them. It wasn’t until the shadow traveled over my body that I thought that it might have been real, but as soon as I saw a man in green and black land just out of my line of sight my heart beat quickened and I felt myself whimper once more some inaudible word: I didn’t really even know what it was that I had said.

     Loki kneeled just over me, his face expressionless, but his eyes betrayed his indifferent demeanor and showed the faintest traces of worry. His hand – which was a lot colder than I had anticipated – gently brushed along my cheek, “How is it you managed to get yourself into this situation, hm?” I felt myself shaking, tears brimming in my eyes, and I tried to utter something witty, but he shook his head, “Your body is going through symptoms of shock, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, love. Let me…” Loki’s voice trailed off as he carefully scooped his arm under my left side, gently but firmly gripping my right elbow, and slowly eased me up. I gasped in pain, drawing my left wing in, and squeezed my eyes shut tightly. He stopped, leaving us in an awkward position with me halfway up, my feet barely under me, and Loki leaned over me in an obviously uncomfortable crouch, “It’s going to hurt, Aderyn, but I need to move you. You’ll bleed out if I leave you here.”

     I managed a nod, which promptly got us moving again, sending a nauseating pain shooting through my body and to my right shoulder and wing. I was getting weaker, but Loki was helping me to stand anyway, which was something I was surprised I could still do.

     Together we must’ve made an odd sight: him leaning in an uncomfortable crouch as he shuffled me along, me in an odd sort of shuffle with my left wing brought in as close as possible and my right one sort of drooping. There was just so much pain all over me; I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

     A weird looking hover scooter or whatever it was called flew down in front of where we were, landing just at the edge of the building, directly over where Dr. Ramsey had died and fallen off of the roof. Piloting the contraption was some sort of creature that immediately got my heart racing in fear. Loki noticed my apprehension, probably because of me planting my feet and refusing to move anymore, and chuckled quietly, “Aderyn, meet the Chitauri. They are my… army.”

     “W-why do you need an alien army?” I asked weakly.

     “To take over this world, of course. Come along, Aderyn, we’re going to get you help,” he gently pushed for me to keep moving closer to the Chitauri and his contraption and I was too weak to restrain so I allowed myself to go with his lead and step up to the thing. Loki put a leg up and pulled his whole weight up onto the flying device, using his weight to propel me with him. He had me standing in front of and facing him while he placed his hands on the railing – or was it the controls… – of the flying scooter. I was scared and untrusting, but I felt myself getting weaker by the second. With my face that close to Loki’s, however, I felt a bit… I wouldn’t want to be cliché, but… I felt safer. It was ironic, considering that he was a monster; he had an alien army to destroy and take over the world, and for all I knew he was taking me to be ground up into hamburger meat, but Loki made me feel safer.

     My eyes grew heavy but I kept them open, only to have Loki coo gently until I could no longer keep my head up; I collapsed on Loki, with him keeping me standing and yet not. My head was on his shoulder and he was keeping my right wing from being jostled too much.

     The next thing I knew Loki was helping me into the Stark building. I hadn’t realized I’d passed out but I felt like I was going to again. As my head found its way back to Loki, he said, “Sorry, love, but you need to stay awake now: we wouldn’t want you going under for good.”

     He helped sit me down on a couch – the room around me was some sort of penthouse suite – and then walked back to the glass doors that we had gone through. He stood staring at something that was flying towards us, but my eyesight was getting blurry and I could no longer focus on any one thing. I was in so much pain and I knew that my mind was beginning to shut itself down in its panic.

     My eyes closed.

     “Please tell me you’re going to appeal to my humanity,” Loki said.

     “Uh… actually, I’m planning to threaten you,” another male voice said in response. It was Tony’s voice from what I could tell.

     “You should have left your armor on for that,” Loki sounded amused.

     “Yeah, it’s seen a bit of mileage. You’ve got the blue stick of destiny. Would you like a drink?”

     Loki sounded somewhat more amused as he spoke, “Stalling me won’t change anything.”

     “No, no, no! Threatening,” Tony reminded him, “No drink? You sure? I’m having one.”

     “The Chitauri are coming, nothing will change that. What have I to fear?”

     “The Avengers,” Tony said matter-of-factly, followed by silence. He continued, “It’s what we call ourselves, sort of like a team. “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” type of thing.”

     Loki sounded even more amused as he said, “Yes, I’ve met them.”

     Tony sort of chuckled, “Yeah, takes us a while to get any traction, I’ll give you that one. But, let’s do a headcount here: your brother, the demigod; the super soldier, a living legend that kind of lives up to the legend; a man with breathtaking anger management issues; a couple of master assassins, and you, big fella, you’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”

     “That was the plan.”

     “Not a great plan. When they come, and they will… they’ll come for you.”

     “I have an army.”

     “We have a Hulk.”

     “I thought the beast had wandered off?” Loki asked, not as amused as he was a moment before.

     “You’re missing the point,” Tony sounded a tad bit exasperated, “There’s no throne, there’s no version of this, where you come out on top. Maybe your army comes and maybe it’s too much for us, but it’s all on you. Because if we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.”

     I heard a bit of what Loki was saying but I was beginning to drift once more. That is, until the sound of Tony flying across the room caused my eyes to flutter open. My eyes met his and he muttered, “What the—?” before Loki advanced on him again. “Jarvis, anytime now!”

     Loki gripped Tony around the throat, “You will all fall before me,” he promised. Immediately following, Loki threw Tony out of the window, for him to fall to his death. I must have gasped because Loki turned to look at me, right as some red thing went flying right behind him and out the window, angled down. Loki was confused, but I was fed up. There continued to be new thing after new thing, all of which strange and confusing, and I was dying on a billionaire’s couch while a mad man threw a man out of the window. I was tired and I was delirious.

     My eyes closed again and I knew I was crazy because I heard Tony’s voice, “And there’s another person you pissed off: his name was Phil.”

     There was a blast and I heard a body fly back and hit the couch right next to my head. I opened my eyes again, seeing Loki sitting there, and Tony in his Iron Man suit flying over to me. His mask opened up so I could see his face and he looked over me. “Jarvis, scan her.”

     I heard a mumbled voice but couldn’t make out the words.

     Loki looked pissed off and was about to raise his scepter thing but hesitated, “She’s going to die if she doesn't get medical assistance. I want you and everyone else dead, but… not her.”

     Tony looked shocked but ignored him, “Aderyn, do you understand what I am saying right now?”

     I managed to mumble a quiet, “Yeah,” and he nodded.

     “Okay, then I am going to take you to a hospital.”

     My eyes widened and in all of my fucking pain and confusion I began to panic, going hysterical, “No, no, no! No, no! No! You, ugh,” I had tried to sit up but the pain was too much. Regardless, I kept speaking, grunting out through my teeth, “No, the scientists… normal people… I can’t, I can’t, please, no, please…” my voice grew weaker and weaker as the room began spinning. I was losing a lot of blood, the extra wounds only adding to that fact. From what I knew about bullet wounds and blood loss I shouldn’t have even been capable of doing anything at that point, but I was still incoherently pleading and staying conscious.

     “Aderyn, you—”

     “Aderyn,” Loki interrupted, “This annoying man is going to take you to get the help you obviously need. You could die, love.”

     In Loki’s words I realized the main reason I didn’t want to be taken to the hospital, to get the help I needed: I had given up. I was tired, I hated myself, and I didn’t have a purpose. I just wanted it all to end, I just wanted to die and be done with it.

     I had fought Ramsey at first because in that moment, in my eyes, he was the only person after me, he embodied the group after me, and in killing him I saved myself. But I was wrong. The group was larger than anything I could even imagine, and they would stop at nothing in order to get me. There was no amount of running or hiding for me anymore. There never was. They were humoring me, allowing me to kid myself in thinking I was ever one step ahead of them. And I was tired of running.

     I shook my head and said that I wanted to die, that I was exhausted, but no sound came out. I felt my body being gripped and I was lifted off of the couch, cold metal under me, and I tried thrashing and screaming but I did not move nor did I scream: it seemed I was beginning to finally descend into that place inside of me, perhaps for the last time.

     I felt the unmistakeable rustle of wind through my hair and wings and I knew Tony was flying me away from the building, away from Loki. I was confused about that entire situation, mainly why Loki had helped me in the first place and then extended that kindness to allowing the man he had attempted to kill and still wanted dead to also save me. I didn’t know what to think. I was just so tired…

     There were voices and a sense of urgency as I was transferred from Tony to a hospital bed, but I was so very tired. I didn’t want to fight anymore. So why was I still conscious? I could no longer feel my body, I had no idea if the people were helping me or studying me or trying to kill me, and for whatever reason I could not allow myself to succumb to the whisper of death that encroached around me. I was just so tired…


End file.
